Burgundy Blues
by Inkyprints
Summary: Here's an interesting fact that I just made up. In a strange universe slightly disconnected from this one, Harry Potter was born premature on the 31st of July 1980. In this story, he wasn't. Born 27th of September 1980 this is a Harry Potter with no scar, new classmates, a sinister looking wand, and somehow he's got a strange diary belonging to T. M. Riddle.
1. Prologue

**Here's an interesting fact I just made up. In a strange universe slightly disconnected from this one, Harry Potter was born premature on the 31st of July 1980. In this story, he wasn't. Born 27th of September this is a Harry Potter with no scar, new classmates, and a strange diary belonging to T. M. Riddle.**

**Disclaimer: I've merely borrowed these playthings from JK Rowling's toy box. I'm sure she doesn't know that I've borrowed them, and I'll most likely return them in good condition before she finds out. If I do accidentally break one, never fear, I'm pretty good with glue and spellotape.**

**Rated T for some rude words, off colour content, bad grammar, and Bertram.  
**

**Prologue**

What James Potter expected to gain from his pacing of the hospital waiting room was anyone's guess. All he knew was that sitting down quiet, calm, and still was certainly not an option at the moment. Taking nineteen measured steps to go from the left wall to the right and for some reason twenty steps to traverse from right to left, he trod with a finger nail nibbled between his teeth and his mind a whirl with thoughts. At the left hand wall he was greeted by a cheerful litany of helpful posters that warned of heart disease, cancer, cholesterol, smoking, flu, and strokes. The posters were dotted with dissected blackened lungs, clogged greasy arteries, and one had an old man huddling in a chair with a blanket. It was all very sombre stuff, and he wondered how muggles managed to survive from day to day when they were plagued my so many problems. At the other end he was greeted by a large clock and a calendar that announced it was 8:22PM on the 31st of July 1980, and at the current rate the second hand was swinging around the clock's big white face it would be 8:22 on the 31st of July for about four months or so.

He didn't know which terminal of his pacing was worse, the posters telling him he was as good as dead or the clock that cruelly defied the passage of time. All he did know for certain was that he was panicking again. It was fortunate in many ways because he'd had a lot of practice at panicking and therefore considered himself somewhat of an expert on the subject. Indeed, for the last seven months his entire life had revolved around bouts of blind panic interspersed with stretches of sheer terror and sprinkled liberally with moments of unbridled fear. The panic attacks mostly centered around the safety and well-being of his currently pregnant wife and unborn child (note to self: Don't call it baby-blob around Lily). To his masculine brown eyes the whole baby and pregnancy business seemed strange, alien, and frighteningly out of his control. He was the man of the house, and he should be responsible for protecting and providing for his family; he should not be told to calm down and leave it be for nine months as things developed outside his control. It felt like being sat on the broom bristles whilst someone else tugged the handle, and it made him jittery, anxious, nervous, and prone to panic. So yes, James Potter was a self-certified master at panicking.

It would be unfair to lay all the blame at the door of his darling wife, his soon-to-be son, and his outdated misogynistic view on the world. There was the ongoing war of terror being fought on all fronts around them that was headed by a deranged and powerful Dark Lord with an intense disliking to James to consider too. How he'd become Lord What's-His-Name most infuriating enemy wasn't entirely his fault. You see the comic book adventures of Little Lord Soiledshorts was the brainchild of Sirius, and James only drew (and, with incredibly short-sightedness, signed) the comics. Anyway, declaring himself the creator of sixteen popular comic books written and animated with the sole intention of insulting the Dark Lord had done little to enamour himself with the insane loon. Then, to make matters worse he married his beloved Lily Evans, an event some newspapers announced on the front page as, "Another Ancient and Respected Bloodline Diluted" whilst others filled their front page with, "The Magical Couple of the Future".

Overnight he and his wife had become the propaganda chew toy for two opposing armies in a war, but only the bigoted pure-blood extremists had aimed their wands in a very definite direction with a very definite purpose. They wanted his wife dead due to her apparently unpure blood, they wanted him dead for marrying her and "diluting" his apparently pure blood, and now they wanted their son dead because he was a symbol of all that was bad and unholy in their union. So far the Dark Lord had tried twice to eradicate them from the face of the earth. Once using his horrid minions and once making a personal but brief appearance himself, neither had been successful. They had managed, with a lot of luck, to escape both times with bulging belly, morning sickness, maternity dress, and all. Needless to say with all this panic going on it was a wonder he wasn't going bald.

'Oh Merlin,' James muttered. With this thought ringing in his head he stopped pacing the small, oddly chemical smelling waiting room with a bone jarring jolt, one leg half raised in step. He brought a testing hand up and started to pat his head, his fingers searching for evidence of a barren spot. Not satisfied with the results he walked across the room and used a shiny piece of chrome on a handrail to inspect his crop of jet black hair. No, definitely not going bald, thank Merlin for that. He resumed his pacing of the waiting room and after several minutes got sick of the sickness that faced him. 'Sod this,' he growled and swinging himself around ninety degrees discovered it took him eleven paces to move to the front of the room and twelve to take him back again. Maybe one of his legs was shorter than the other, he thought. His change of scenery included such delights as a huge display of artwork from the local primary school featuring a lot of purple blobs and not a lot of talent, and a small steel sink complete with a big red sign informing him to WASH HANDS THOROUGHLY.

With a sigh of defeat he stopped in the middle of the room and came to the conclusion that Muggle hospitals were first and foremost the most dreary and gut wrenching places on the planet and that they stank something awful. Why Lily had insisted on this place instead of St. Mungos he didn't know, but he did know she had been very insistent and very scary about it.

'James, I swear to god the first medieval "healer" who attempts to touch my pregnant body will lose so many fingers that they won't be able to pick up a leech ever again. Do you understand me!' She'd growled, literally growled like a cornered tiger.

'Honey, they don't use leeches anymore,' he had defended his proud wizarding culture and heritage as best he could from the unflattering position of cowering in the corner with his hands shielding himself from the angry lady. 'They use Gold Gill Limpets nowadays, it's all very modern and—OKAY...OKAY. I'll take you to the hospital, just don't squeeze! For the love of Godric don't squeeze!'

'A proper hospital, one with real doctors and sadly underpaid and under-appreciated nurses,' Lily snapped and to show she meant business squeezed a little.

'YeeEES!' James squeaked emphatically as his voice hitched. He started to pant and blow in shallow breathes as a bead of sweat chilled a trail his forehead, 'yes, a real proper muggle one with lots of dockers and hearses and those bleeping machines you like so much.'

It was at that point when he blacked out. How it happened he didn't know, but he suspected a sneaky stunning spell or a blow to the head courtesy of his wife. It wasn't his finest moment if he was honest, but at least he could take some pride in the knowledge that he hadn't been scared of her. No, definitely not. James Potter still wore the trousers in the Potter household and there was no denying it, and he'd sic his wife on anyone who said any different.

Upon regaining consciousness some time later he had found himself incredibly wet and in the sole company of a guilty looking house elf. Gummy, who was the house elf, was dancing from foot to foot and his big hazel round eyes were swivelling left and right in a bid to find a likely escape route should he need it. 'Mistress—'

'You know she doesn't like you calling her Mistress,' James said gently and automatically. He ran a hand down his face to squeegee off the excess water.

'Miss...Lily,' the house elf said in a disjointed and awkward manner, as if he had caught himself mid-word and had changed course violently, 'says I was to be giving you this.' He trust his hand out and in his long thin fingers he held out a note.

'And the water?' James enquired as he took the note from the elf.

'She said I was to be giving you a dose of cold water when she was left, and that if I wasn't doing that she would give me a raise,' the house elf went on. 'Does Mast—Mister James want drying?'

James shuddered involuntarily as remembered his ninth birthday when he had gotten soaked to the bone courtesy of a mischievous uncle and a booby-trapped birthday cake, and he remembered the drying process given to him by Lippy the house elf, and he remembered telling himself succinctly never to endure it again. 'Nope, I'll just read the note and you can dry the floor afterwards. Floors, I feel, are far better suited to the rigours of house elf magic than squishy humans.'

The note was short and written in Lily's tidy curly handwriting. It started with several insults aimed at his courage and fortitude before it went on to inform him that she, lacking a husband, had taken herself to some hospital or other in London. It took him nearly an hour and the help of Maria May the muggleborn Ravenclaw Sirius knew remarkably well to find her. When he did find the hospital and then subsequently found her, she was in on a big strange bed in a big, shiny, creepy, white, sterile room that came complete with a tidy little healer woman who had dimples and wore a white coat. They'd invited him to stay, and Lily had been very open in regards to sharing the experience of her hospital visit with him, but there had been those rubber tube things and those big metal things and that straps-and-pulley thing and the prospect of blood lingered everywhere he looked. He'd taken one glance at a rather sharp needle and things had gone swiftly downhill. His head had swum and the last thing he remembered was apologising to his wife and the healer woman in turn before the shiny, white, sterile floor had rushed up to meet him.

Lily, bless her, had been very understanding and once they'd revived him (without the aid of a water spewing house-elf) she had told him he should get some fresh air and that he should calm down and leave it be as everything was fine in her very capable hands. He had very bravely taken her advice and had exiled himself from that horrid room to this horrid room. That had been two hours ago, and he had grown quite sick of the fresh hair this room provided. For Merlin's sake, what did it take to get some information in this place? He didn't even know who to ask or how to ask it, whatever it was that needed to be asked.

'There you are!' a voice startled him. It came from the corner where nothing but a suspicious looking muggle contrivance that dispensed water stood. It was Sirius, and he was wearing a velvet set of purple robes and he was stood precariously atop the large bottle of water that sat on top of the water dispensing contrivance. James didn't know how the machine worked, but occasionally it gurgled and a bubble rose up through the water tank. He thought it might be digesting something, but he was too afraid to find out.

'How did you get there?' James asked. The lack of audible pop and Sirius's reluctance to apparate after the splicing incident in forth year ruled out that form of transport. He certainly didn't walk here either, because Sirius despised walking almost as much as apparating. That only left his charmed muggle motorbike, but that still made too much noise despite Remus's best efforts to silence it.

'Portkey,' Sirius declared and held up the note James had been handed upon his first resurgence from the land of the unconscious. 'I just finished my shift, popped into see how you were doing and found this on your kitchen table. Didn't hang around, did I, popped straight on over? Got to admit it bloody near knocked my pipe out hearing you were in a muggle hospital. Is everything alright?'

'Yes—I mean, I don't know. Lily's having problems, you know with the baby and all,' James admitted softly and scratched his head for want of something to do. 'And what do you mean portkey, that's not a portkey.'

'Is. It says so on the back, doesn't it,' Sirius said. He held the paper out to reveal Lily's neat curly handwriting spelling out _Portkey Password: Elephant Tusks_ on the back. James had obviously missed it in his frantic hurry to get ready for a muggle excursion of great importance. 'So what's wrong, mate? It appears she's fine enough to berate your sterling standards of manliness and take herself to hospital, so it can't be that bad, can it?'

Despite the glib words James knew Sirius was worried. The roguish looking man had fallen into a default state where he was doing his best to put a brave and charming face on the situation, unfortunately it wasn't working. 'I don't know!' James snapped back at his oldest and dearest friend. The anxiety and the uncertainty had bubbled up to breaking point and popped. 'All I know is she woke up this morn—wait a second, this is private, and it's Lil's business. I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be telling you-and will you get off that thing, you're making it buckle.'

'Bloody hell,' Sirius mocked with a low whistle and high eyebrows. 'I knew muggles could do a lot of things in their hospitals. Remove brains, kidneys, livers, but I didn't know they could cut out a fellow's humour as well.'

'I have not had my humour cut out!' James hissed angrily, 'I know it might have escaped your notice, but my wife is in hospital! A hospital you are currently doing your best to destroy!'

'Sorry,' Sirius muttered and bowed his head as the gravity of the situation befell him. 'I just thought a bit of a laugh might have cheered you up.'

'Well, it didn't,' James sighed. He got a grip of himself and shook his head apologetically, 'sorry, I know you're just...being Sirius.'

'Ha ha, that joke never gets old,' Sirius laughed sarcastically. 'So, what are the muggle healers of the female persuasion like? I hear tell that they're quite delectable and wear the sweetest little uniforms. Woof!' As he barked this out he hopped down off the machine with all the grace and finesse a 22-year-old wizard possessed, which was not much. There was a clank of plastic as the big blue bottle he had been stood up popped back into shape, a ripping noise as Sirius's robes got tangled up on the now reformed plastic bottle, a cry for help as Sirius pitched forward with his arms and legs flailing wildly, and then a loud glug as the bottle was wrenched free of the machine sending a slosh of water up the wall and across the floor.

'Shit!' James squealed as he leapt over Sirius's prone form and snatched up the glugging bottle in his arms. He held it in both the best and worst possible manner, with the neck aiming straight down and at Sirius both. 'What the hell have you done?'

'Mergh!' Sirius splashed and spluttered as his attempts at getting up only managing to spray and spread more water around. No doubt he was doing it so everyone could enjoy it. 'Blearugh mah!'

'How does this thing fit back on?' James yelled out in a perfectly practised panic and tried to hammer the now empty bottle back onto the machine with little success, 'Merlin, the chairs and floor are soaked! Sirius, will you stop messing around and help me! This is your fault, after all?'

'Me!' Sirius argued as he swam towards the edge of the pool and sat against the wall panting from the effort. 'I didn't empty the bloody thing out, did I. That was all you, you pillock.'

'I'm sorry, are we ignoring the part where you just destroyed the thing with your big clumsy arse?' James demanded and pointed to the still broken machine. 'We're in so much trouble when Lily finds out. Look at this place!'

Sirius, still sat and panting against the wall, looked around at the small flood with growing interest, something caught his eye and he gave a girlish scream. 'Crap, the hole, the holes!' Sirius yelped. In a surprising move of athleticism he threw himself away from the wall and landed back in the middle of the puddle with a big splash and threw his hands over his head to protect himself. 'THE HOLES, MAN! THE HOLES!'

'What are you going on about?' James demanded as he made a final last ditch effort to fix the bottle back onto the machine. It fell off, he scooped it up and debated on whether he should beat some sense into Sirius with it.

'The plum things!' Sirius almost wept and pointed to the three holes in a 1 over 2 configuration around the base of the wall, 'Plums and water...Electisity, it'll kill us if they mix together! Get down, man!'

James, always handy in a tight spot and well practised in the art of panic, put two and two together and realised the deadly situation they were in. 'No, you fool! Get up! Get out of the water, quick!' He corrected as he remembered his muggle studies classes. He'd only joined that stupid class because Lily attended it and he wanted to be near her. Never in his wildest dreams did he think it would save his life one day.

Scrambling up onto the chair with the empty bottle in one hand James dragged Sirius up beside him. Soaking wet and trembling they clung together for dear life on their little plastic island surrounded by fine spring water. They alternated between screwing their eyes shut in terror and sobbing and watching the shimmering surface of the huge puddle for signs of escaping electisity.

Nothing escaped, but something did splash towards them and the big bottle was suddenly pulled from James's hand. From their lofty perch they slit open an eye apiece. 'Good evening,' Remus Lupin said with blasé smugness. He stuffed his wand in the top of the water bottle; filled it with a quick aguamenti charm; popped it back on the contrivance with ease; scourgified the floor, the chair, the walls, and the various magazines with a swish of his wand; dried the pair of them off with a blast of warm dry air; and finally poured himself a cup of water from the machine he had just fixed. 'Is Lily alright?' he finished nonchalantly as he pocketed his wand and looked about him for any hint or clue.

James and Sirius disentangled themselves from each other and drew apart to a respectful manly distance. With a simple look between them, the two best friends decided to never discuss this with anyone ever and in fact forget it ever happened in the first place. James got down off the chair first followed by sheepish Sirius who ran his hands through his dry frizzled hair to reinstate the lost roguishness to his long black locks.

'I honestly don't know, mate. I've been here for hours and no one has told me anything,' James admitted.

'Wait a second. How did you know we were here?' Sirius demanded suspiciously. He pushed James back gently and confronted his friend. It was a horrible thing to ask someone you had known and considered as good as a brother for over a decade, but with the current climate in the wizarding world friendships were brittle and suspicions were rife. Besides, it was no secret that you-know-who was offering to change the lives of werewolves for the better, and if anyone was going to fall prey to that sort of talk it would be Remus.

'Lily sent me an owl,' Remus pulled out a small scrap of paper and read, 'Dear Remus, I am taking myself to hospital (don't worry, I'm sure everything is fine). When that weak-willed husband of mine wakes up he will invariably find his way to St Mary's and before long that dratted Sirius Black will find him. Would you please, please, please do me a favour and supervise the pair of them. You know what they're like when they're left alone. P.S. Please stop Sirius hitting on the nurses, it's creepy.'

'Lily sent that?' James asked.

'What is she implying with: you know what they're like when they're alone? What's that supposed to mean?' Sirius demanded. The slight against his wooing ways not bothering him in the slightest.

'Need I remind you that I did find you stood on the chairs crying and holding each other in a flooded waiting room not two minutes ago?' Remus cocked an eyebrow. 'You're both destructive, hyperactive, careless chaos engines. I was half amazed I couldn't see smoke billowing up from the hospital roof when I arrived.'

'It was an accident,' Sirius assured him and looked at James to convey the all important "back me up here, mate" nod.

'Yeah, the thing just fell over,' James said, 'shoddy muggle craftsmanship, I'm sure.'

'Potter, Mr James Potter?' a woman with a sweet bubbly Scottish accent asked as she pushed her way into the room. She was wearing her blue muggle healer outfit and a reassuring smile.

Remus reached over and clicked Sirius's mouth shut and James rushed forward to present himself. 'Yes, Lily Potter, that's me, I mean, my wife's Lily Potter and I'm me-James, James Potter. I'm having a baby, I mean we're having a baby, or I suppose my wife is doing all the hard work. Please tell me she's still having a baby,' he said in a long blurt of incomprehensible English which the woman was thankfully fluent in.

'We're her brothers,' Sirius said. He pushed James aside and stepped forward to take his place before the lovely young woman. 'Is Lily alright? And I might add that is a smashing blouse you're wearing.'

The nurse gave Sirius, his auror robes, and his usual opening chat up line a suspicious look; which he was used to, and then checked her clipboard, 'Sirius Black?' she said.

'Yes, that's me,' was his reply.

With a long drawn out hmm, she turned her attention back to James and grabbed him by the elbow so as to lead him away to a quiet corner. 'Yes, you're still having a baby, but not for another couple of month or so. So please, don't worry. She's fine, baby is fine, everything is fine and she will, with all luck on our side, carry to full-term.'

'But-but she was bleeding...there was blood,' James managed to say as his brain tried to politely wrangle sensitive female anatomical information out of the woman without being rude or getting too personal.

She gave him a tight little smile full of sympathy and understanding. 'The bleeding was the result of a mild infection, but it's all been taken care of and there's honestly nothing to worry about. We'll most likely release her in the morning after she's had a good night's sleep and we have monitored the situation, just to be sure.'

'Oh, thank Merli-god or something,' James muttered as he flopped down onto old island and let out a seemingly endless breath that he didn't know he was holding.

'You can go and see her if you like,' the nurse said with a big happy smile. 'And yes, all the scary metal things and icky tubes are all nicely tucked away out of sight…sorry, but your wife told me to inform you of that. Sirius Black...she says you've to wait outside and try to refrain from being creepy.'

'Oh,' Sirius frowned before taking a deep breath. 'Oh well. Have I told you that's a smashing blouse you're wearing?'

'Try and refrain harder,' she said politely before she led James away.

**A/N: This is my first fanfic, so go easy on me. :)**


	2. Bolton and Albright

**Disclaimer: I've merely borrowed these playthings from JK Rowling's toy box. I'm sure she doesn't know that I've borrowed them, and I'll most likely return them in good condition before she does. If I do accidentally break one, never fear, I'm pretty good with glue and spellotape.**

**Chapter 1 – Bolton and Albright**

Harry Potter straddled the blue fence that hemmed in the place he had called home for the last six years, which at the age of eleven was over half his entire life. The house itself was large and square with bright orange brickwork half hidden behind lush green climbing plants. Up front there was huge bay windows that he had sat behind and read on rainy days, and around back there was a big conservatory and pool house where he had swam and lounged on sunny days. It was wonderful here, it was beautiful here, and it was such a shame that today he was leaving here.

He liked to tell himself that all the "home" had now gone, it had been systematically taken apart, swathed in bubble wrap, stowed in cardboard boxes, distributed among the needy, or very carefully dismantled and the screws kept safe. What remained was just a husk, a mere skin with no soul, a domicile in waiting. He hoped it went to another family, one that was as loving of each other as they would invariably be to it; a family that could fill this wonderful place to bursting with new memories and new adventures. Just like he and his foster family had done. Thinking about those memories and those adventures now was difficult and painful, and he hated that such beautiful and wonderful things should be tarnished by his own emotions, but he couldn't help himself. He shamefully used the heel of his hand to wipe away a stupid, traitorous tear that had escaped his attention and was making a hasty bid for freedom down his cheek. He wouldn't cry, he'd promised himself that he wouldn't cry, not today. The minute he started to cry the walls would fall and everyone would be at it...again. No, he would do his utmost to prevent this being any harder than it already was, and if that meant being strong and resolute, then so be it.

Harry heard the low warning growls of a car creeping its way down the quiet road and his head perked up in expectation. He silently wished it was Mrs Lister next door returning from her church coffee morning, or Doctor Patel returning home from an evening shift at the hospital. Around him the idyllic Oxfordshire street set in the midst of an idyllic Oxfordshire neighbourhood seemed to still, as if it was holding its breath in anticipation with him. The growl grew into a rumble and the car, a brown box on wheels with very little to recommend it in terms of design, rolled past at a painstakingly slow crawl. It's driver was a woman who was busily craning her neck and twisting her head about left and right as if she was under attack by a solitary bee that was persistent on being a nuisance. Harry knew this car and driver were for him the instant he laid eyes on them, and that meant his wonderful time here was drawing to an end. The craning, twisting, arching woman's eyes finally landed on him, and her round soft face split apart in a smile that was far too bright and disappeared far too quick.

A rubber stamp on her forehead labelling her SOCIAL WORKER in huge red letters couldn't have done a better job than that fleeting smile, Harry though. The job title seemed almost a curse for a boy in his situation, and with good reason. They only made an appearance to interfere or impose and then they scuttled away to spread their meddling elsewhere without a care or a consideration. He was sure they were specially trained in the art of the lightning fast fake smile, unobtrusive small talk, and faking empathy. Seeing him sat there she hauled on the steering wheel and her brown boxy car rolled into the driveway, and leaning across the passenger seat she began to crank the window down with the winder.

'Good morning, are you Harry Potter?' she enquired in his general direction.

'Yes ma'am,' Harry replied. She might be a member of a cursed branch of government and undoubtedly a busy-body without equal, but he had been taught to be polite and respectful to everyone he met and so he would be to her as well.

'Good, good,' she chirped with a flash of toothy smile, and satisfied that she had her man—or boy—she wound the window back up and eased herself out of the car. In a bid to colour match her mode of transportation she was wearing a brown wool cardigan, a long brown skirt, sensible brown leather shoes with bronze buckles, and for a touch of variety a salmon pink blouse. Her hair was brown too, pulled back into a slick and oily ponytail that she had flicked forward over her left shoulder to purvey an elegant air. If her name was Ms Brown he would have to forgo his promise and break down into awful wailing sobs at the absurdity of the situation.

'My name's Ms Russet,' she introduced herself. In a few perfectly measured steps forward she was stood before him at some undoubtedly bureaucratically safe distance and extended her thin bony hand. Harry, who was busily considering if he should make good on breaking his promise or to let the name slide on by due to a technicality, was momentarily stunned into inaction. 'Are you feeling okay?' she asked.

'Hmm...yes. Sorry, I was away with the fairies for moment,' Harry said after finally deciding to keep his dignity, his promise, and his tears. He shook her hand and found that it was a jerky and measured affair, as if she had practised using a rule to meter out the perfect motions.

'I'm here to take you away on what could be a fantastic new adventure,' she said with another smile that was blink-and-you'd-miss-it fast, 'doesn't that sound exciting.' Then her brown eyes looked around at the big house, the clean and leafy street, and the large Mercedes that her old clunker of a car had nearly rear ended on the drive. Her chirpy little round face took a turn for the worse and a seizure seemed to grip her body as it sagged in defeat. Realisation that Harry had undoubtedly been enjoying some fantastic adventure already, and whatever she was offering would undeniably fall far short in terms of excitement had dawned like a new day. She gathered herself together in seconds and her sagging demeanour was inflated once more, 'let me get my bag out of the car and we'll nip inside to collect your stuff, say goodbye, and be off.'

'Okay,' Harry mumbled. Every muscle in his body seemed to be passively resisting, and he had to dig deep to find enough energy to even move his lips. With lethargic actions he hopped off the fence and dragged his feet every step it took to join the woman stood at her car. He knew without looking that the bag would be some grotesquely bulging monstrosity with a very long shoulder strap and a flap that was broken, and it didn't disappoint. The brown satchel bag was stuffed to bursting with papers and folders and when it was heaved onto her shoulder with a strained grunt the thing butt against her ankles.

'Lead on, McDuff,' Ms Russet proclaimed and made a gesture with her hand towards the door at the end of the driveway, 'that's Shakespeare, do you read Shakespeare?' She went on, giving a wonderful demonstration of the awkward small talk social workers specialised in.

'I have read a little,' Harry admitted as he absentmindedly listed the four plays he had read in his head, one of them being Macbeth. He wondered if he should correct the misquote she'd just given, but decided that sort of thing was mean, belittling, and stank of conceitedness. Besides, by the time he'd made his mind up on the subject he'd dragged his feet and she'd dragged her bag all the way to the front door, and blurting it out at that point would be considered strange. He really, really didn't want to be considered "strange" by people who carried bulging bags full of files and had the power to request immediate psychoanalyzing.

Pushing the front door open Harry was confronted by the large hallway and the swooping spiral staircase that had greeted him every day for six odd years. The walls that had once been adorned with canvas prints of antique world maps and Eiffel Tower scenes were barren. Dug into the ivory coloured carpet he could see the little indentations where the hall table had stood with the curly telephone cable hanging over the edge, he was surprised there wasn't two foot marks indented in the carpet courtesy of Liza who had stood beside that table for countless hours on countless phone calls. It really was a shell, he thought to reassure himself, just a shell. The life and love had truly been packed up and loaded onto a shipping container never to be seen on these shores again.

'Mu—' he stopped himself mid-yell. They'd decided to stop using those terms of endearment as they had started to hurt a little too much. He sighed in regret and tried again, 'Liza!' he corrected. His voice sounded strange in this husk of a home too, it was hollow and dull and he had to speak louder to fill in all the extra space. 'Richard?' he called out. Pushing open the sitting room door he was confronted with a thousand happy memories and absolutely no joy. The sofa he had curled up on to watch Scooby Doo was gone along with the TV, the bookcases crammed with books and journals were gutted and nothing remained but the wooden shelves jutting out from the wall like the bones of a ribcage. Harry quickly and angrily snapped the door shut and turned to Ms Russet, 'they might be upstairs. They have some packing still to do,' he said thickly. He would not cry.

'When do they leave?' she asked nosily. No doubt she knew, but that didn't stop her trying to pry some extra information out.

'Valentine's Day,' Harry said and in case it was important added, 'this Friday.'

Leading the way up the swooping staircase to the first floor Harry gave the call for Liza and Richard once more before he heard a distant and muffled, 'up here, darling,' being returned from the second floor. He pulled himself up the stairs knowing each step took him closer to leaving and arrived at the master bedroom where the door was open and he could see one of the last vestige of the Ashcroft family home within. Dominating the middle of the room was a substantial four poster bed that was too big and far too installed to be shipped across the world. Once upon a time it had been draped in the finest goose down quilts that in turn were wrapped in the best Egyptian cotton bed sheets, and it housed so many plump pillows that a boy could spend a very happy afternoon building a fort big enough to rival Windsor Castle. Now it was covered in a plain white duvet with two flat lifeless pillow apiece. The old finery was packed up and floating around the world or was given away to a good home. Acting as an improvised wardrobe were four open suitcases that lay along the far wall, come Friday they would be packed, checked, and swept away to the airport en route to Australia.

His long term foster parents Professor Richard Ashcroft and Doctor Elizabeth Ashcroft were stood on either side of the bed, they were busily in the process of carefully sorting out that morning's dry cleaning and putting it all back neatly into the wardrobes. Richard, as normal, looked awkward and gangly as he worked to fold a pair of corduroy trousers. He was a man of a towering height that was for the most part made up of legs and neck. The lofty altitude and thin air had done him little favours in the neck and face department. His bulb like head had begun balding before it had begun greying, and his gaunt sallow face, sagging sad eyes, and thin turkey neck meant he looked about ready to blow out sixty-three candles on his birthday cake rather than the actual forty-two. Opposite him was Elizabeth, his wife of fifteen years. She was a veterinary physician who specialised in horses and had a keen love of gardening and gossip. She was small in stature and with middle age fast approaching she was beginning to grow dumpy and far more cheerful and prone to humming.

'Ms Russet from social services is here,' Harry announced as he inched his way into their bedroom and stood aside to allow the woman to enter. Ms Russet breezed in, her strict marching steps very uniform and measured and her introductions very curt and brisk.

'Hold right there,' Richard announced as he threw a half folded shirt onto the bed, 'I'll go and get you a chair. Just give me two ticks,' he ruffled Harry's hair in passing before ducking his 6 foot 8 frame through the door's 6 foot 4 frame.

'You're just about packed and ready to go, I see,' Ms Russet's small talk training began to take control.

'Nearly, of course a few last minute things always start to mount up when the time draws near,' Liza said. She gave Harry a reassuring look and a sad little smile to apologise for his being a "last minute thing".

'Tell me about it, I remember moving from Cardiff to Essex, and that was quite a nightmare in itself. I'd hate to imagine what a move from here to Australia would be like,' Ms Russet said.

'It's time consuming mostly,' Richard supplied as he arrived with a fold out camping chair gripped in his hand, 'and includes far more temporary furniture than one is accustomed to. Sorry, but his is literally the only chair we have in the house.'

'It's fine, thank you,' Ms Russet said. Richard unfolded the chair and set it down for her, and she in her exacting manner perched herself atop it and folded her legs underneath her and crossed her feet at the ankles.

'I'm afraid tea is out of the question too.' We've been existing on take away and restaurants for the last ten days,' Richard said before looking thoughtfully out of the window at the back garden, 'or I could, I suppose, quickly nip down to the coffee shop on East Street and be back here in ten minutes. They do a remarkably nice Earl Grey there, and I'll confess I will miss it very much.'

'No, no, no,' Ms Russet laughed a fake little laugh and gave a dismissive wave of her hand. She then reached blindly into her bag and produced one of the many thick folders that lay within and unfurled it on her lap. 'Please, don't put yourself out on my account. As you said, you've got far too many last minute things to get on with without me putting more work on you. Now, this meeting is just a formality aimed at proving you some measure of closure, and reassures you that Harry is going to be okay and well looked after.'

At these words Elizabeth and Richard lowered themselves onto the bed as if preparing for the worst. Harry shuffled himself into a corner and watched the final proceedings with mute horror and sobriety. He could have got involved and tried to speak some reason or reassurance to his ex-parents, but he knew that all he could say had been said and all the arguments he could make had been argued. Also, he didn't want to go about raking up old ground, not now. It would upset and hurt everyone involved, and the situation was delicate enough and his tears were barely being held back as it was.

'We so wanted to take him with us,' Liza blurted out immediately in their defence. 'And we really tried, we really did.'

'It truly was horrid experience. You thought you'd made some headway on the situation only to get told that you'd done the exact opposite and that you would now need to fill out these six extra forms and provide three extra forms of identification. For Christ's sake, he's eleven years old, he doesn't have his own personal identity yet, let alone the paper variety. I told them all this through many long and tiresome phone calls, but I might as have spoken to the gate post for the listening they did,' Richard elaborated.

'We thought joining the fostering scheme was difficult,' Liza, a woman who liked to keep her sentences short, said with an exasperated sigh.

'You're talking to someone who deals with that system day in and day out. Believe me, you have nothing but my sympathy,' Ms Russet parroted one of her many stock responses that in some vague regard sort of fit the situation.

'Such a shame to see him go,' Liza went on and she gave the first tentative sniff.

'We honestly couldn't have asked for a better boy, a most perfect little gentleman. He's a very bright kid, you know,' Richard declared and his pigeon chest swelled with some measure of pride. 'Top of his class at school, and he won a regional science prize last year for his diorama on plate tectonics. Wonderful little thing with motors and gears that made mountains rise and various landmasses shift. I wouldn't be lying if I said it even taught me a thing or two,' he smiled fondly before the look slipped off his face. 'Then some rival girl went and broke it, stuck her finger right through India. Deliberate sabotage, you understand. Still, more fool her, she ended up with second prize.'

'He's ever so quite, some might say he's shy, but I like to say he's a deep thinker,' Liza prompted softly. She dabbed at her brimming eyes with a crumpled up old handkerchief she had hidden up her sleeve. Harry would have gone to her, but that would have invariably made things worse and she would begin to blub in earnest.

'Quiet and thoughtful, he's always been very quiet and very thoughtful. You don't get that sort of thing from children today, do you. They live too fast and too loud, and they grow up having said to much and not stopping to listen once in a while. I don't know what the world's coming to. He's an astonishing young man, Ms Russet, and I'll be damn sorry to see him go.'

'He's very well behaved too,' Liza's voice gulped through a sob.

'Yes, he's as good as gold. Never a bad word for anyone. A little childish wonder and fancy of course,' Richard wagged a playful finger in the air, 'you know how it is, the odd tall tales and a few white lies over the broken biscuit barrel. Well, I say, what would childhood be without a little mischief in it.'

'There's never a bad mark against his name at school, and his teachers,' Liza shot up in a half crouch and stopped, 'oh dear, I've packed his report cards in with the books, haven't I?' She sat back down onto the bed in defeat and gave another hiccup of sobbing. 'I was going to show you his report cards, they're astonishing. I'm so silly at times, aren't I. If you had taken them with you I'm sure it would have helped him get fostered again with a wonderful family who would love and appreciate him.'

Ms Russet, who had been sat paralysed with not caring about any of this, offered up one of her smiles without saying anything. Harry could tell she was just binding her time and waiting for the paternal outpouring to cease so she could continue with her job. Richard reached across and rubbed his wife's back too sooth her and they shared a few private whispers of comfort.

'He's a dab hand at the piano and plays football for the school team...or should I say played,' said Richard. He slapped his knee suddenly and turned to his wife. 'Darn it, Liza, I'm sure we could have organised something with the school. There must have been some loophole that could have got him boarded full time. It's not like I've not got a fair few favours to hand in and a few friends I could contact.'

'We tried, Dickie, you know we tried,' she assured him softly, and clasping his hand in hers she gave it a reassuring squeeze before raising it to her lips to spot a kiss to the back.

Finding a lull in the conversation Ms Russet wedged herself into it with every intention of bringing this sobbing departure to a speedy conclusion so she could be on her way. 'He's going to a wonderful care home in London,' she said, and there was a flash of white as her teeth were exposed for a smile.

'Really? Did you hear that, Harry? The big city, huh, that's not all bad, is it,' Richard said with fake optimism. Harry then watched with some consternation as the man gave a crafty nudge and a subtle wink to his wife. 'Ha, that's the place for a young chap to be, not stuck out here in the sticks surrounded by us doddering old farts and our creaking old buildings. London, finest city in the world.'

'O-Oh yes. It's a wonderful place. I half wish I could be settling down there myself instead of-of Sidney,' Liza tried her best to put a brave face on the proceedings, but the honking blow she gave into the handkerchief somewhat ruined it.

'I have some photos if you'd like to see them,' Ms Russet said. She skimmed through her folder to a little plastic sleeve where upon she removed a few glossy photographs and handed them across. With this done she put her hands back on her lap and waited patiently, like a robot who had been powered down.

There was a long awkward moment where silence reigned as first Richard and then Liza flipped through the photos one by one. Once Liza had finished her silent perusal of each one in turn she held them out for Harry to take, and he did. Sitting down on the bed beside her he began to flip through them as she snaked an arm around his back and pulled him close for a little hug.

The first was a picture of a chair and just a chair. It was a mustard coloured thing that looked fresh out of the sixties and came complete with a large stain on the seat and plastic arms that were sun bleached. The most notable thing about it was the way it sort of dominated the photo with it being the only thing on show and the rest being oddly cut out. After that came a photo of a window with a view that was mostly grey cloudy skies with a few barren tree branches poking up from the bottom of the frame. The person who took this one must have been very short to have such a disadvantageous angle, Harry thought. Then there was a picture of a boy wearing a grimy t-shirt and stained shorts. He looked about sixteen with hair shaved to a stubble and teeth that would make a horse proud. The absent look on his face and his glazed expression seemed to hint at him either being on the verge of a ketamine overdose or of him being clinically brain dead. The final photo was of the same boy, but he was now sat down in the mustard coloured chair looking out of the photographed window. He had a huge dopey smile on his face that seemed to imply that he was bearing witness to all the world's delights, or that the ketamine wasn't quite wore off yet.

'These seem awfully,' Harry searched for the right word, 'cropped,' he finished slowly.

'It's called Bolton and Albright Care Home, and it has every possible modern convenience an institution of its nature is required to have by law,' Ms Russet said with a flash of smile. 'I'm sure you'll be most comfortable there.'

'I'm sure it's a lovely place,' Liza hiccupped. She took the photos back off Harry and began looking through them again, no doubt trying to find something hopeful in them. 'You'll have to send us more photos when you write to us. I would love to see how well you've settled in,' she said when she obviously found very little in her search.

'Yes, that's an excellent idea. Now perhaps we should make a move,' Ms Russet said with all the subtly of a rhino with arse ache. 'It's a long drive and there is quite a lot of administration work I still need to complete on the other end.'

'Yes, that would be for the best I suppose, wouldn't it?' Richard asked the room in general to see if anyone had any other bright ideas. When none came he unfolded his lean frame from the bed and stood there awkwardly for a moment. 'Do we need to sign anything?'

'Indeed you do,' Ms Russet said as she delved into her bag once more and extracted some forms with pink counterfoil sheets attached. Signatures, initials, and dates were liberally applied by both Liza and Richard and even Harry had to sign a form twice. She quickly split the various forms and handed Richard the counterfoil duplicates, which he neatly folded up and slipped into his pocket. 'Is Harry packed and ready to go?'

'Yes ma'am,' Harry said and his body went on protest again as he set off to retrieve his suitcase from the shell that had once been his bedroom. When he appeared to be dragging his feet a little too much Richard put a hand on his shoulder and urged him along. Together they led Ms Russet downstairs to the room which he had once slept. The walls were still painted the deep red colour and the white carpet still bore the stain from a cola accident some years back, but besides these reminders it wasn't his room anymore. His bed was given to charity not two hours ago and the night before his wardrobe, chest of drawers, and other furniture had gone the same way. Through a door to his left lay his en suite bathroom. It was still mainly intact owing to the fact people didn't appreciate it when you ripped out the plumbing. Despite it still being there and still looking familiar, the room felt oddly cold and sterile to Harry and he took no joy using it that morning to shower.

'Where's your case?' Richard asked a rather pertinent question as he stepped into the room behind Harry.

'Right ther-,' Harry stopped, his finger pointing at an empty spot in the middle of the room. 'What, where's it gone? It was right there.'

'Harry, this isn't some game of yours, is it?' Richard said slowly and deliberately, as if he was hinting at a secret something.

'N-No, I swear,' Harry shook his head as he walked forward and frowned at the spot. 'I packed it last night and checked it over this morning, and then I left it right here to go sit out on the fence. You saw me,' he said to Ms Russet.

'Are you sure you didn't take it downstairs with you absentmindedly? Maybe you left it near the front door or in the lounge,' Richard asked.

'No, it WHOA!' Harry screamed. His foot collided with something solid and reluctant to move. His upper body still intent on going forward, did, only now it was on a decidedly downward path. He toppled forward, his chin hit the carpet and his glasses bounced off into some blurry corner. 'Ow,' Harry mumbled into the soft white pile his face was buried in.

'Are you alright, lad?' Richard cried out as he rushed forward and helped Harry to his feet.

'Yeah, I'm fine,' Harry assured him. He rubbed his bashed knee as he hopped over to collect his wayward eyeglasses. With everything in focus again he turned around to find the black boxy suitcase sat exactly where he had left it. His big green eyes flicked up to see Richard, who was doing his level best not to return his gaze and was instead intently focused on concocting some outlandish, reality distorting version of events to explain the situation.

'Huh, would you look at that, must have been a trick of the light,' Richard said distantly as he gestured with a waved finger at the pool of light streaming in through the window and blanketing the suitcase and surrounding area in a soft golden glow. 'Strange how the eyes deceives you, isn't it.'

'Yeah, must have been,' Harry muttered without a lick of conviction. As Richard had commented earlier, Harry was liable to childhood fancy and wonder, and these little incidents were as fancy as they got.

'Let's take it downstairs where it can't do any more damage, shall we?' Richard said as he snatched it up.

'How about I take it downstairs to the car and leave you to say your goodbyes in private,' Ms Russet reported primly from the doorway and with her usual exacting standards marched forward to take it from Richard.

'What an excellent idea. Yes, that would be mighty kind of you, thank you,' Richard relinquished his hold on the case and the tidy little woman in brown left without another word. Once alone Richard patted Harry on the back and his voice, normally a mellow dulcet tone, dropped to a tight and nervous whisper, 'Come on, lad, let's go and say goodbye to mum—Liza, shall we?'

It took a long time and a lot of hugs, kisses, tears, and repeated promises of staying in touch before Harry finally passed through the front door for the last time. He slouched his way towards the brown car, each dragged step feeling as if his numb shaking legs had been caked in cement. When he finally got to pulling the car door open it sounded like the bolt of a gun being wrenched back, and the sharp snap of the door slamming shut the report as the trigger was pulled. Professor Ashcroft held Dr Ashcroft as she wept into his chest and he let his tears fall into her hair. Harry proudly commended himself on keeping his reserve throughout and not breaking down into tears, but he would admit it was a close thing. The brown car was reversed out of the driveway and two sets of watery eyes were lifted as a final sombre wave goodbye was given. Harry twisted his neck to see them and waved back with what he hoped was a reassuring smile on his face that lasted until the loving couple and the house vanished behind the wooden fence where he had spent his morning.

'They seemed nice people,' Ms Russet broached after a moment of respectful silence.

'They were the nicest of people,' Harry admitted. 'I was very fortunate to have had them in my life, and I will undoubtedly hold a special place in my heart for them until my dying day.'

'There's a box of tissues in the glove box,' she admitted quietly as Harry decided his strong and reserved act had gone on long enough. 'Always a handy thing to keep around in this job.' Harry reached forward and popped open the compartment. He found a large box of man sized tissues, and after extracting two he spent the next few miles chasing away the tears in silence. 'They seemed very proud of you, and judging by the things they said I'm sure it was with good reason,' Ms Russet tried to engage him conversation once again.

Harry remained mute for a moment, as he was wont to do when constructing a comment, 'I think children don't know quite how amazing their parents are,' he said finally. 'If being an orphan teaches you one thing, it teaches you that. The love, the compassion, the spirit, the community, and those unbreakable bonds are so remarkable and yet so often taken for granted. I didn't take them for granted, and when I was fostered with Rich—Mum and Dad I wanted to be the very best I could be for them. I tried and I tried with every fibre of my being to earn every ounce of their love and their respect, and I was determined to show my gratitude by being everything they hoped I could be.'

'I think you did that,' Ms Russet said as she hit the motorway and started to build up speed.

'I hope so,' Harry said with a sudden yawn, 'I hope so.' The hum of the smooth road under the tyres lulled him, and he sank back into the seat and shut his eyes with every intention of just resting them for a moment.

He was jolted awake by a blaring siren, and out of his window he saw a pair of police cars fly past with a vhroom, vhroom. They swerved in and out of traffic and there was a screech of protesting tyres as they sped around the corner ahead and out of sight.

'Awake at last,' Ms Russet said mostly to herself.

'How long have I been asleep?' Harry asked groggily as he looked at the towering buildings that were all around him. The roads were clogged with cars and the pavements on either side of them were heavily laden with foot traffic as well. It was London, that much he could tell, but exactly whereabouts in London, he wasn't sure of.

'About fifty miles, or just under an hour and a half,' Ms Russet said as she threaded the car down the road.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to nod off on you,' Harry admitted a little guiltily. If he was driving someone around and they fell asleep he might be inclined to feel a little annoyed at their lack of courtesy.

'Don't worry about it. I've been doing this job a long time, and nine times out of ten a kid in your situation will fall asleep in that very seat. It's the emotions, they can be surprisingly draining. At least you had the decency to wake up before I had to carry you inside. We're about fifteen minutes out, so enjoy the ride and take in the sights.'

Harry spent the next fifteen minutes doing just that, silently gazing out of the window at the bustling metropolis that heaved around him. Whilst he didn't see everything there was to see, there were some things that struck a chord with him, and none of it was pleasant. First there was the homeless man urinating up a wall, then there was a loud and aggressive shoving match outside a bookmakers, and when they stopped at a set of red lights a man in tatters and rags stepped forward and used what was most likely the world's dirtiest sponge to smear mucky brown water all over Ms Russet's windscreen.

'Pound for the service, madam, come on, just a quid,' he demanded as he tapped the driver's side window with a course knuckle , 'come on, please, just a pound.'

'This doesn't look like a very nice area,' Harry commented. When he'd gone to London with Richard and Elizabeth they went to Kensington, Chelsea, and took excursions into North London to see Richard's old university friends. This place was certainly not like any of them, not by a long stretch.

'These people are salt of the earth, Harry. True Londoners with hearts of gold,' Ms Russet said with faux pride and heart. The lights turned green and she slammed her foot down and sped away at some speed, leaving the rotten man and his rotten sponge to cough in the dirt. 'Where was I? Oh yes, these people are the very backbone of our nation.'

Watching a woman in high heels and a skirt that could double as a belt stagger and weave her way down the street with sick splattered down her front made Harry recoil slightly. 'They're the back something, but I probably wouldn't go so high as the backbone,' he mumbled.

The busy high street with its many bookmakers, newsagents, shady characters, and other urine smelling amenities fell away with the turn of a corner. They were then happily bumping and shuddering along a potholed and shabby road that saw something fall off the car with a clatter, and Harry was sure a tooth or two was worked loose. To their left and right small pebbledash houses clustered in tightly, some had a rusting old heap of a car buried in amid their overgrown front garden, others had a boarded up window or two, and a couple had a large fat man wearing a string vest and drinking a can of lager as he smoked an impossibly thin roll up cigarette stood on the front door step. They took another corner and against all probability the condition of the road grew even worse. They clattered and rattled along a road that dissected a span of empty wasteland decorated liberally with old shopping trolleys and burnt out cars. There was a prison a little distance off to Harry's left, it's towering brick walls obscured the building beyond and cut an imposing sight on the landscape.

'What prison is that?' Harry enquired and his answer came with the audible click...click...click as Ms Russet pushed down on her indicator stalk and Harry felt his body roll with the car as it turned left. 'Please don't tell me that's Bolton and Albright Care Home,' he pleaded. He snapped his head around to see Ms Russet was looking straight ahead and remained resolutely silent on the matter. The mammoth brick curtain grew and grew until it's immense bulk blotted out the sun and left them in it's cold, dark shade. The car was stopped before a single wrought iron gate set that was half rusted and half painted a thick course black. A large metal sign beside the old gate read MASTER KAY WAS 'ERE and MAD BAM BOYS 4 LIFE in graffiti. 'Is that a bullet hole?' Harry said with growing horror as he spied a large raggedy hole punched into metal plate of the sign.

'Welcome to your new home,' Ms Russet chose to ignore his query and delivered the bad news in the best chipper tone she could manage.

'Bugger,' Harry gulped.


	3. The Whirly Jig

**Disclaimer: I've merely borrowed these playthings from JK Rowling's toy box. I'm sure she doesn't know that I've borrowed them, and I'll most likely return them in good condition before she does. If I do accidentally break one, never fear, I'm pretty good with glue and spellotape.**

**A/N: A couple of people have complained about my use of single quotation marks, and I have tried to fix the problem and will switch to double quotation marks from this point out. Problem is I have always used the British system of single quotes for speech and double quotes for nesting quotes inside quotes (that's a lot of quotes, but you should understand what I mean) and it's quite habit forming. Anyway, if any do slip by in future, I apologise.**

**Chapter 2 – The Whirly Jig**

Professor McGonagall pushed open the old arch top door with her bum and carefully backed her way into her cosy office. In her left hand she held a cup of tea that was 80% proof thanks to a healthy glug of Old Gumper McGonagall's Single Malt Gingerwhisky (an old family brew so potent that it's mere fumes was known to intoxicate owls sat high in the rafters overhead), and with her right arm she was clasping two hefty reams of parchment and a bulk load of envelopes to her chest. After finding her desk occupied by a large backlog of paperwork she dropped the new stationary onto an available side table, and being careful to keep her tea away from naked flames she got settled into her chair and got set to start the preparations for the next school year.

The first thing she did was carefully unwrap the reams of standard cut parchment that was freshly printed with the school's letterhead. Snipping the wax paper and pulling the cover away she quickly inhaled the fresh woody smell that wafted forth before it was lost into the air of her office. She loved that smell, it reminded her that she had six weeks of peace and quiet before the rampaging students returned come September. With the materials unwrapped and thoroughly sniffed she moved to the corner of her office where a large white sheet was thrown over the best labour saving device since the invention of the house elf. Whipping the cover aside in one big flourish revealed a very strange contraption that will require some explanation.

It was for the most part a large L shaped table whose ancient wooden top had been worn smooth and adorned with a series of strange and curious devices. At the top of the L there was three wooden trays fittingly labelled Letters, Lists, and Envelopes. Moving down the backbone of the L to the right angle corner there was three long spindly metal arms sprouting from the table's surface and in line with the trays above them. They looked almost like long metal spider legs with springs for tendons and cogs for joints. All three arched around, over, and down for the apparent sole purpose of suspending the sharp pointed nibs of three quills above the table's surface. Stood against the base of each spindly arm was a glass inkwell that currently stood empty. Going across the base line of the L to the half way mark you encountered a trio of small wooden ramps leading nowhere, and following on logically to the far end of the baseline there was a tripod with a large copper flask with a long copper spout perched atop it. Beside the tripod and flask there was what appeared to a be muggle hammer attached to an intricate crank system. This, ladies and gentleman, was The Whirly Jig.

Professor McGonagall, after admiring the machine for a moment, set about preparing it with great diligence and care. First she loaded the parchment and the envelops in their respective trays and made sure each one was squared up nicely and was the right way up and around. Next she moved to her supplies cupboard, and pulling open the doors her face soured into an angry sneer at the grim reminder brought about by the four large bottles of ink that were stood inside. Tradition dictated that due to Slytherin winning the House Cup at the closure of the last school year she was forced to use the green ink to write the letters. If Ravenclaw won she would be forced to use blue ink and yellow if the Hufflepuffs won and of course red when her proud lions of Gryffindor took home the trophy. With some lingering anger she snatched out the green bottle, it was already half empty and by the time she had filled the three inkwells it was practically running dry. Lastly, she took some small cubes of red wax and after dropping a handful into the copper flask lit a little stub of a candle which she pushed amid the tripods legs so the flickering flame tickled the flask's bottom and began to melt the contents.

That was the Whirly Jig primed and ready for action. She withdrew her wand from her pocket and tapped the tip against a small metal plate recessed into the wood, and it in return gave a little chime of acknowledgement. It seemed disappointing at first when nothing happened, but after a moment's reluctance the machine gave a little shudder as if to wake itself up from a deep sleep, then, with a mysterious clunk from somewhere unseen the contrivance began got to work.

Swish, the noise like ripping silk sounded as two sheets of parchment (one from each tray) and an envelope were skimmed down the table. Clink, sounded the glass inkwells as they were called into service as tiny buffers that stopped the skimming stationary in position below the mechanical arms. Tap-tap, the quills held in their spring loaded fingers were dipped and gently struck against the lip of the glass inkwells to remove any excess green ink. Cree, the tired old mechanical arms protested as they swung in a jerky, awkward manner and bobbed their feathered heads down to the awaiting parchment. Scit-scrit-scratch, whispered the fine quills as they quickly and perfectly wrote out one acceptance letter, one equipment list, and one addressed envelope in unison. Flit, the sheets and envelope were propelled on across the table where they shot up the little ramps and were sent fluttering into the air. Schlip, the flying parchment sheets were magical folded as they flew and they slipped together before the airborne envelope dove and with perfect elegance sheathed them in its papery embrace and pushing the flap down sealed them inside. Tink, went the now full envelope once it had glided back down to the table and it had crash landed gently against the tripod's metal legs. Eek, sounded a hinge mechanism as the tripod tipped the flask over. Drip-drip-dip, splashes of melted ruby red wax fell onto the envelope below to form a splodge the size of a sickle. Thump, the little hammer was slammed down into the wax to impress the school's noble seal. Floosh, the envelope shot across the room like a paper arrow. Clunk, the addressed and sealed envelope landed in one of eight pigeon holes labelled 1 through 7 for the school years and an eighth clearly labelled Muggle Induction Required.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk was the sound of wizarding industry at its finest.

As the first envelope was being shot across the room the second was already twirling in the air and its various parts were being fitted together whilst a third was busily being inked. Professor McGonagall nodded her solemn respect for the device and all the labour it saved her. She liked things that did their job well and did them efficiently, and the Whirly Jig, a wonder of modern wizarding industry, did just that. She watched the second letter being pigeon holed and then to double check everything was indeed fine watched the third that followed.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

It was invented strangely enough by Abrax Slytherin (no relation) in 1742 and had been pushed into service ever since. It was so well constructed and so intricate was the web of charms and spells that made it work that even Albus Dumbledore himself was left perplexed by it. Apparently the wily Deputy Headmaster of old had tried to streamline a great many of his duties with strange and wild inventions of his own design. Most failed spectacularly and some were down right dangerous, and in the end this fine example of his craft was all that was left. There was talk of a machine supremely capable of supervising detentions and delivering stern canings hidden somewhere inside Hogwarts vast and cavernous girth. Professor McGonagall, eager to employ it, had launched several long and tireless searches for the device, but it had never been found. All investigations pointed towards the thing being lost at the bottom of the lake, but she would never know for sure. One thing she did know for sure was that mentioning it around Peeves the Poltergeist made him shriek in fear and run away with his hands clasped protectively across his bottom.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

Not having to write her wrists sore like so many Deputy Heads before her, Professor McGonagall was now free to tackle the heap of paperwork that had been steadily accumulated on her desk over the last twenty-nine years. She did try her hardest to attend to the most pertinent paperwork before it began to fossilize at the bottom of her parchment mountain, but didn't always succeed. To tackle this problem she would need fortifying, and so she took a quick nip of her tea. She felt the 'technically' tea blowtorch the inside of her throat as it slid down and the further it went the warmer it radiated, finally, when it was glowing white hot, it landed in her stomach not so much with a splash but with a raging fireball that careened through her body and made her fingertips tingle. "Ahh, that's the stuff," she sighed in delight before putting the little china cup back on its saucer.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

Searching around base of the mountain for any papers that had plummeted over the summit in recent days, she inadvertently found the most atrocious of missives – Professor Snape's holiday letter. She visibly shuddered in revulsion as she picked up the unnecessarily pretty and delightful muggle envelope and held it between her finger tips at arm's length, as if it was contagious.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

The envelope itself was pastel pink with a picture of a little bear holding balloons in the bottom corner, and scrawled across the middle in sinful black ink was some of Severus's seemingly patented angry spiky letters. He didn't so much write but attack the paper with the English language, and his weapon of choice in his battle had been her name and address. She took another fortifying sip of tea before venturing forth. The letter, she knew, was going to be aggravating, and the fact he had no doubt taken great delight in writing it only made her blood boil even more. She dug her finger under the flap and started to tear it open.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

_My Dearest Minerva, _

_I just thought I would write and let you know that I am having a right old fine time. As I sit here in my hotel awaiting my breakfast and expecting to do nothing for the rest of the day but soak up the sun, I find myself rather sorry you couldn't join me, for I'm sure you would be enjoying a right old fine time too. _

_I take great heart in knowing that you are being kept busy in the cold frigid wastelands north of the border and not being left bored, nor are you being gifted time to dwell on the apparent situation (or that god awful weather you Scots are so fond of). It is to this end that I will keep this letter brief, so as not to remove you from your plentiful obligations. After all, the quidditch pitch isn't going to returf itself and those quidditch stands aren't going to magically gain a new coat of paint, are they? (Remember, no magic, I'll be checking)._

_It was such shame Gryffindor provided such a pitiable showing on the pitch this year. I had honestly hoped that your team would prove to be a challenging adversary to my own, but alas, it was not meant to be. Oh well, I'm sure Oliver Wood will try his very best to field a game-winning team next year or at least try to field one that isn't a complete you wish, I will have Marcus sit your captain down and mentor him in what it takes to captain a well oiled and perfectly drilled team.  
_

_Sorry, must dash breakfast is here and I have to reserve a table for one at a wonderful little Italian restaurant. I intent to stuff myself sick with fine food and wine and be incredibly rude to the snooty waiters. Again, such a shame you can't be here, I'm sure you'd love it.  
_

_With lots of love and kisses_

_Severus_

_p.s. I have included a photo of myself enjoying a glass of Old Gumper's in the sea at Brighton - a fine __English __holiday destination._

_p.p.s. Don't let the turf grow under your feet, ha ha ha. (Aren't I a wit)_

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

Professor McGonagall swallowed the sickly bile that had rose in her throat and her eye twitched in fury as she slowly counted down from a hundred to quench the surge of anger. Damn that man, damn him to hell and back. To suffer the full horror of the situation, like a tongue probing the hole of a missing tooth, she turned to the included photo. There was Severus on the beach with his greasy long hair covered by a little knotted handkerchief and in his thin hand he was holding a tumbler of her precious family alcohol. He couldn't even enjoy a trip to the beach properly, she thought. He wore a black roll neck jumper up to his chin and black trousers that he had rolled up just past the ankles to avoid them getting wet. There was a merest stripe of pasty white flesh exposed above the dreary sea water that sloshed and frothed around his feet. His face was twisted into a smile that could be called a repressed grimace, it was almost as if it had to endure a great hardship to expose himself under the sun as he was. By Merlin, he would go to great lengths just to rub her nose in it, she thought. And what she would give to rub his nose into the sand below the waves and keep rubbing until he pleaded for mercy.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

'Nex' year yer grea' flutterin' bat, ya wait till nex' year!' She shouted at the offending letter and shook her fist at it for emphasis. "I'll be in me kilt an' ghillies whilst scoffin' a big ol' slice of yer fancy cake whilst standin' knee deep in de waters of-of-of—" her brain ground to a halt as she tried to think of a Scottish beach suitable for the picture, "-somewhere in Scotland, aye," she finished lamely. As usual the moment her national pride had been irked her Scottish accent thickened to the consistency of granite. She angrily balled the letter and photo up in her fist and punched it angrily before heaving it across the room where it exploded in mid air thank to a jab of her wand.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

When she and Severus started making these crazy wagers over the winning of the Quidditch Cup it had been a simple affair with one bottle of her finest Old Grumble's wagered against one of his 'The Masterpiece' cakes. However, things soon started to get out of hand and it was entirely her fault. In her boundless arrogance and pomposity she had upped the ante every year with little exhausting tasks thrown in for the loser to do over summer, and why not? She had been in sole custody of the great Charlie Weasley at the time, a seeker who could out fly any of the competition whilst sat backwards on his broom. He had a near perfect record and the team only got better when he was made captain of it. She and her house team had won the trophy three times in a row and so the wagers had grown and grown to comical proportions as had the mockery and humiliation that accompanied them. Her final victory had saw dear little Severus spending his holiday time scrubbing all 896 steps in Hogwarts and mopping out all twenty-three sets of bathrooms before trimming all the lawns with a muggle push/pull lawnmower. And to show how wonderful being a winner was she would send him lovely little letters full of ripe sarcasm and ridicule from some far flung corner of the globe with an attached photos of her eating 'The Masterpiece'.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

'The Masterpiece' with capital letters and curly quotes firmly in place. Oh, what she would give for another taste of that earthly sin. She licked her lips in desperate hope that some lingering taste might remain. Snape being a world renowned potion master was also a maestro in the kitchen, and his speciality was a quadruple layer chocolate fudge cake with lashing of cream and slathered in Snape's Secret Sauce. One taste and you too would throw yourself down on your knees and offer homage to it, you would pray for just one more morsel, and you would throw in your soul for a whole slice.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

Of course with Snape being a bastard of the highest calibre he was getting his own back now that her winning streak was over and his was in full swing. The bastard. She sat back in her chair with a squeak of leather and took another sip of caustic tea, it did little to lift her spirits now. She gave a despondent sigh at the closed door of her office. Her brave cubs hadn't won the quidditch cup in five years now, not since Charlie Weasley had left and taken his incredible tactical thinking, amazing leadership, and unmatched seeking prowess with him. In fact if it wasn't for Hufflepuff consistently fielding a lacklustre team full of timid mice and apologetic weaklings her Lions would finish at the very bottom of the table.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

She couldn't even figure out where the weak link in her beloved team was, and there certainly had to be a weak link. There was no way her team was being outclassed and outflown by Team Neanderthal in green and silver. For Merlin's sake, the Snakes were captained by Marcus Flint of all people (and she associated him with the term people with some reluctance). He was a boy (again, she was stretching the elasticity of the language to its limits) who had just been held back a year for failing to spell his name correctly on the NEWT exams. Their seeker was one chromosome short of a baboon, and the less said about their chaser line out the better.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump, floosh, clunk.

Her team on the other hand was led by the wonderfully wholesome Oliver Wood, her beaters were twins so in tune with each other they might as well be one split body, her chasers were all best of friend girls so graceful in their teamwork that it made you ache, and her recently graduated seeker whilst not great had certainly been competent. How could they possibly be losing by such a staggering margin every single match.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip, tink, drip-drip-drip, thump-

The sudden change in the repetitive industrial noise behind her made her snap out of her reverie, and like waiting for the crack of thunder after a flash of lightning she waited on tenterhooks for the clunk. It never came, and with a cocked eyebrow of confusion Professor McGonagall very carefully looked over her shoulder at the contraption behind her. It was still working away perfectly for the most part, but there was an envelope hanging off the edge of the table, almost as if it given permission to take off for the pigeon hole but then decided to stage a sit in protest.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch, flit, schlip—the machine worked away despite the clog in the system. A new set of perfectly inked letters and envelope were propelled up the ramp and crammed forcefully into the already occupied and still floating envelope that was waiting to land.

"What's wrong with you?" she demanded to know, as if it could understand her. In reply another set of letters both quickly inked and addressed were sent up the ramps, folded, and stuffed into the now very much overstuffed envelope.

Swish, clink, tap-tap, scit-scrit-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch , went the sickly machine. Professor McGonagall snapped her head around to inspect the newest problem and saw all three mechanical arms were violently attacking a solitary piece of parchment. The nibs were whizzing across the surface, stabbing at the parchment, jostling one another for dominance, and getting green ink everywhere. In seconds the clean white parchment was reduced to a green mess with splodges and splashes of ink all over it and one large puddle forming in the middle.

Seeing the imminent meltdown of the machinery as it seemed to get more and more out of control Professor McGonagall jumped to her feet and prepared to dive for cover should something finally pop. The little hammer, apparently bored for want of something to hit, started to smack down on the bare table over and over again, getting faster and harder with each strike. It's attempts to pulverise the oak turned over the copper flask and it in turn spilt it's molten wax guts in all directions. The jabbing, stabbing, squabbling quills on their spindly arms, not wanting to be left out of the fun, knocked over their inkwells in solidarity.

"Oh no! Please, not now!" she begged as the gravity of the situation and what it meant for leisure time befell her. She rushed forward to salvage some of the apparatus, but before she could make it there was a gentle ping noise and the envelope that had been the cause of all this was shot from its station. It whizzed around end over end in a huge arc, it curved around the series of pigeon holes, swept behind the hat stand, and its trajectory ended with an Ow! when it hit Professor McGonagall square in the forehead. She snatched it up as it fell with one hand and rubbed her head with the other. She read:

Harry James Potter  
Room 2E  
East Wing  
Bolton and Albright Care Home For Children  
London  
England

With her mind still a little bruised and her head a little confused by what the hell was happening she read the name and address again and again to see if she could figure anything out. Potter? Had that maniacal prankster used his son's name to prank her from beyond the grave? Perhaps, she wouldn't put it passed him, and he was certainly capable enough. The machine giving an unusual cough drew her attention and she watched as the soaking sheet of parchment, once the battleground of three warring quills, was bunched into a ball and spat towards her. It splattered against her forehead with a wet squelch and she couldn't help the little growl of annoyance as she caught it on the bounce, and in the process got her hand as inky as both the ball and her head. She unscrewed it and found written FAO: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE had been written over and over and over and over and over again until the entire sheet was near green and she could only ascertain what was written by finding the odd letter and fragment of word here or there in parchment white gaps.

"Damn and blast that f—f—flipping old buzzard!" she snarled before viciously thwacking the Whirly Jig with her wand, "WILL YOU STOP MAKING SO MUCH RACKET!" The machine fell silent and lifeless as it appeared to cower like a kicked dog. "Thank you."

* * *

Sat in his high tower office and surrounded by his clicking and whirling devices Albus Dumbledore was conducting important cultural research; namely, solving a Rubik's Cube. He wasn't so much interested in solving the puzzle itself, but solving the mystery of what a Rubik's Cube was. In truth he'd already half solved the meddlesome puzzle part with the help of his trusty screwdriver, all he had to do now was put all the little colour coded cube things back in the right order and he was done. What happened after he'd finished and what the muggles saw in such a toy was the real mystery he was interested in.

Without warning or common courtesy the door to his office was kicked open with such ferocity that it bounced back and shut itself again. This meant the door had to be angrily kicked open once again with the same lack of common courtesy but a damn sight more warning. On its return this time it very nearly hit his Deputy Headmistress in the face, but a mighty punch to the wood saw it fly back once more and she entered unhindered.

"Good morning Minerva, I must say you're looking especially—green today," he said of her huge green spot that was smeared across her forehead. In truth he should have been more concerned with the fact that the rest of her face was a deep angry red mottling into purple.

"ALBUS!" She snarled between deep disgruntled snorts.

"That's my name, don't wear it out, hah. That's a little muggle humour for—" he stopped as Minerva reached his desk in one giant pounce. With all the force she could muster she slammed a green fist down so hard that it sent half his Rubik's cube bouncing off into unseen corners. He threw his hands up in dismay, "oh great, now you've broken it," he said despondently.

"Albus, you horrid hairy goat!" Professor McGonagall growled with several expletives removed for rating purposes. With her other hand she waved a stamped and sealed Hogwarts's acceptance letter dangerously close to his face. For a moment he thought she meant to cut one of his eyes out or sever his nose. "What is the meaning of this!"

"It's a...erm...letter that declares the recipient has been invited to attend our fine institution here at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It comes complete with an equipment list," the headmaster of said school informed her calmly. "I honestly thought you would know that, Minerva."

Professor McGonagall let out a shuddering breath, "Oh, you're so close to being fed your own beard, old man," she hissed, her eyes narrowed and her lips curled back to show her teeth. "If you're so smart you can perhaps tell me the meaning of this?" She demanded. Holding up the hand that had been slammed down earlier and uncurling her fingers she revealed what appeared to be a green pulp smeared across her palm.

The headmaster took it gingerly between his finger tips and turned it around and around as if it was some strange fruit that he was intent on giving a final inspection before scoffing. Scribbled in amid the mad rambling splodges and inky messes he saw an FA here and an FA there, he spotted a few O: ALB dotted about the place, and on one relatively clean piece of parchment there was MBLEDO written. "I'm not sure, but it appears to be something for my attention."

"Yes, you're damn right it is. And this is me bringing it your attention," Professor McGonagall growled. "That thing and this thing," she waved the acceptance around under his nose again with every intention of doing him harm, "managed to destroy The Whirly Jig. There's ink and wax everywhere. I doubt I'll get it fixed before term begins!" The Headmaster, who had a good idea what this was all about was left with his hands bobbed and weaved in the air as he chased after the woman's frantically gesticulating hand and with it the letter it held. "Well, do you have an explanation for all this madness or not?"

"Yes, and a very good one if I could just see the name and address on that envelope for a moment," the headmaster requested softly. The calm and casual manner in which he said it must have irked the woman as she snorted like a bull and slammed the letter down on the desk so hard it made the windows rattle. The headmaster bent his head over the desk and read the address. The moment his eyes ran over that forth line he felt a chill run over the back of his neck. Memories of the last care home, or orphanage as they were called way back when, flooded his mind. With those memories came knowledge of the monster that was birthed from it, a monster full of hate and brimming with brutality. His blue eyes flicked up to re-read the name of this potential new monster and he frowned at it. "Harry Potter?" he questioned slowly and deliberately. His gaze rose up further to meet Professor McGonagall's, but he quickly looked away when she still seemed intent on murdering him to death. "But I left him with his aunt and uncle. What's he doing in a children's home?"

"I don't know, do I? But it's apparently a big enough deal to ruin a pivotal and priceless piece of equipment. Equipment, I might add, that is required for the smooth operation of this school," Professor McGonagall said tartly. It seemed she was going to let him forget this in a hurry, honestly, you didn't hear him going on about his Rubik's Cube, did you?

"You remember James and Lily, don't you?" the headmaster asked and flicking his eyes up again quickly checked the level of her ire, it was still murderous. "I believe Lily was a favourite of yours."

"I remember most of my old students with a certain fondness, Albus," Professor McGonagall said with tight control over her emotions. Being reminded of that charming girl with her beautiful green eyes quenched some of the fire inside the woman and she sank into a chair. "If you must know, the moment I saw the name on the envelope I suspected that James had pranked me from beyond the grave."

"Yes, he was a scoundrel, wasn't he," Albus gave a little chuckle. A smile spread across his aged face as he was quietly led down memory lane and then thoroughly beat up by a gang of gloomy and long forgotten memories that lay in wait for him in the shadows. "Oh dear, how it all catches up with you sometimes," he muttered thickly as his pale blue eyes stared at nothing and saw too much.

"Are you going to tell me why that letter is so important?" Professor McGonagall asked as her hand reached across the large desk to grasp his. "Is everything okay, Albus?"

Albus considered the problem for a moment and considered his Deputy Headmistress for a moment longer. Could he admit to sabotaging the machine two decades ago? Could he admit that he had been ever watchful of certain phrases in the children's addresses, things like Care Home, Orphanage, Remand Home, Juvenile Detention Centre? Could he admit that he had secretly feared that those cold, callus, loveless places might one day cultivate a new evil? Could he admit that his intention twenty years ago was to investigate any children raised in such places personally, and obliterate their memories and attempt to quash their magical potential if he had any concerns or doubts to their character? Could he?

No.

Minerva, despite her hard exterior was still a very kind and generous hearted woman at her core, and it took a certain stomach to act so deplorably against your own personal feelings and convictions. Sixty years ago he didn't possess such a cast iron gut, and sixty years ago he had seen the monster hidden behind that handsome young face. His weak gut had failed him and the world at large back then. He did possess the cast iron stomach now, and he would certainly be damned before he let another monster loose upon the world. So no, Minerva wouldn't and couldn't know. This was his burden and his alone.

"I must confess that after the first war I might have taken steps to insure any children from the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix that required an induction tour due to their parents demise would be brought to my attention," the headmaster lied smoothly and elegantly. "I honestly didn't know it would be brought to my attention so catastrophically."

"Well I never!" Professor McGonagall huffed, "I don't know if I should be insulted by this blatant slight upon my work or not!" With the fire relit she was out of her chair in a heartbeat and was angrily pacing in front of his desk to let off steam. "I don't see why I should be stuck doing this thankless job at all when I can't be trusted to carry out the inductions!"

"Please, forgive an old man his soppy soft heart. I certainly didn't do it as a personal slight against you, my dear Minerva. I just..." Albus sighed and tried to look forlorn and meek. "In those bleak days after the war, with so many dead and so many left unaccounted for, I felt that I owed something to the people who had been my staunchest supporters, to my friends, and to my allies," he finished softly.

Those words seemed to be the right ones, and Professor McGonagall settled back into her chair without any anger or hostility. "You, Albus Dumbledore, owe nothing to nobody. It's foolish to think you didn't do your part and more during the conflict."

"I live with the knowledge that I could have done much more, Minerva," Albus admitted. The pair of old friends sank into silence to give some modicum of respect to the topic of conversation. Finally, Albus broke it, "I will endeavour to repair your machine as soon as I have a moment of free time. I must confess that during my time as Deputy Headmaster I grew quite fond of that device, and I had almost as much fun tinkering with it as a I did using it."

"Thank you, Albus. I would be much obliged," said Minerva with a respectful nod of her head, "I'm sorry if I was a little short with you earlier, but it's just been a trying day and it's going to turn in a trying week, I know. I have a quidditch pitch to returf at some point in the holiday."

"And don't forget you need to paint the stands," the headmaster reminded her absentmindedly. He turned his attention back to parchment letter that sat on his desk between them. If Harry's half as smart and wise as Lily, and half as conniving and sneaky as James he would be an almighty adversary, Albus thought. Throw in a lifetime in such bleak and terrible surroundings and you had a very dangerous mixture. Yes, Albus would be very much on his guard when he met the scion of house Potter.

"So you are going to conduct the orientation?" Minerva asked as she saw where his attention was.

"If you don't mind," Albus asked as he raised his eyes to meet hers. "For the Order and old friends."

"No, I suppose not. After all it frees me up for half a day of painting or turfing," Professor McGonagall reported with a roll of her eyes. They narrowed suddenly and a thin smile cut into her face, "James was a frightful good flier, wasn't he?" she asked.

"Better than most," Albus admitted. "Was on the team for two cup wins if I remember correctly. He played lead chaser."

"I thought so," Minerva stroked her chin and went on softly, "I wonder if his son has inherited any of his talent?"


	4. A Man of Many Identities

**Disclaimer: I've merely borrowed these playthings from JK Rowling's toy box. I'm sure she doesn't know that I've borrowed them, and I'll most likely return them in good condition before she does. If I do accidently break one, never fear, I'm pretty good with glue and spellotape.**

**A/N: Warning, a few slurs ahead.**

**Chapter 3 – A Man of Many Identities**

Albus Dumbledore beat the sun to rising the next morning, and in fact he beat it every morning. His highly tuned body-clock and impeccably ordered mind meant he awoke fresh as a daisy at three o'clock after precisely five-and-a-half hours of sleep every day. His morning ablutions and exercise were taken together in the form of swimming a few lengths in his private bathtub, which he enjoyed very much. With that task done and himself clean and invigorated he spend a considerable amount of time standing on his office balcony combing his snowy white beard and even snowier white hair with a silver backed brush, as the chill morning air whipped around his body and dried his body off.

Awoken, invigorated, washed, combed, and dried the headmaster padded across his office, down the spiral stairs, along the corridor, down more stairs, through the foyer, across the walkway, up three flights of spiraling stairs, and along the transfiguration corridor to the dressing room in his office of yore. It was here that he got dressed. He should really consider moving his dressing room closer to his current bedroom, but he had never gotten around it, and besides when you were as folically enriched as he there was really was no need to be bashful. What modesty didn't cover, a huge cascade of lush white hair did.

Pulling open the wardrobe doors he was confronted by his proud collection of fashionable wizarding wear. There was green robes with kittens batting a yarn of wool, gold robes with bees fluttering around flowers, pink robes with dogs wagging their tails, red robes with bouncing balls, blue robes with snitches, magenta robes with dancing cauldrons, and many more besides. They weren't for him today, though. Unless he could pull off the eccentric look for muggle society...? No, he pushed the tempting idea and the tempting attire aside as the fashionable allure began to seize hold of him. He had to focus on the task at hand, it was important. What he wanted from his wardrobe today was on the floor in a large flat cardboard box. He bent down and drew out the box with all care and carried it into his old disused office. He pulled the top off and swept the tissue paper aside and found nestled inside his muggle disguise.

Albus, a great lover of fashion and all its nuances, was both appalled by the muggle tendency to never reinvent themselves and at the same time he admired them for it. He appreciated and applauded the fact that they had found a fashion that suited them and stuck by it through thick and thin. Indeed, this suit that he had bought in 1917 was still as fresh and fashionable today in muggle society as it was back then. You couldn't lay that same strength at the doors of wizarding fashion, oh no. If he was to wear a set of robes from 1917 today he'd be laughed at and people would think him quite mad. Yes, muggles and their timeless fashion were a wonderful thing in some regards. He also liked the prices, he got his suit very cheap because it was apparently behind the times. He had queried how a suit could run late when he purchased it, but the sales assistant had been unforthcoming with answers. In the end it didn't bother him none, and he had paid the sum and left with his much coveted disguise under his arm.

Dressing in the unusual garb was difficult. Okay, underwear was underwear and that was not a problem for him. The wing-collared shirt was a little tight across the chest, and the buttons were fiddly, and he had to resort to magic to tie the bow-tie because he'd never done it without before. Then came the strange and alien parts. First the tweed waistcoat, which was a complete mystery to him and appeared to serve no purpose other than to keep your body warm. Following that came the matching tweed trousers that pinched him in strange and exciting places. Then the long tailed tweed morning coat with its little floppy bits dangling around the back, to him it felt like a set of robes that had been left half finished. Once dressed this far he spent a moment prancing around his old office and marvelling at how he could see his knees working inside the trouser legs, quite a surprise to a robe wearing man. His final article of clothing were the brown and white brogue shoes which he pushed his feet into and took a few more ungainly steps around the office. He had to admit, he did prefer his shoes to have more curl in the toe, and if possible a bell as well.

Once attired and somewhat comfortable, he had to accessorise. No one would believe him to be a fashionable muggle if he didn't have the right accessories. First he had his brown leather belt, again it came with the suit and was no doubt still at the height of muggle fashion. Then there was his muggle wallet, which was not only fashionable but practical as it contained all his muggle identities. Next came the large floppy flat cap that he slipped onto his head, and after some thought he turned it around the right way. Then came the umbrella, black and tightly wound it had a wooden handle and a metal point that he could click on the floor as he walked should the fancy take him. Last but not least was a small vial of Stultifying Solution, which was slipped into a specially sewn compartment of his shirt cuff.

Stopping someone from being magical or binding their magical core was impossible, but you could stop it manifesting itself at inopportune times. Stultifying Solution, was a favourite of the Spell Damage Ward of St Mungo's hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. When a patient was deranged or mentally erratic they were known to have severe bouts of what were professionally dubbed Unexpected Magical Outbursts (UMOs). These were in part due to their damaged brains making them fear imaginary demons or panic at the sound of a door closing to the point that their magic flared up in a way reminiscent of accidental magic. To stop these incidents the healers administered Stultifying Solution, and what it did was put a tiny chemical buffer between that little part of the brain that triggered magic and the magical core itself. In a healthy person with a wand to channel and direct their magic and a full complement of magical training the barrier would have little to no effect, but in a mentally ill patient with no wand and no control over their magical training it would stop UMOs for several months or even a year.

Albus didn't want it for this particular reason, however. His target was a child who didn't suffer from UMOs but who would undoubtedly suffer from accidental magic. It was his hope that if he could block these episodes long enough they would cease naturally before the potion wore off and never reoccur. Afterwards, whilst the child would still be magically gifted, their chance of accessing that magic without the proper tools or training would be miniscule. Once this was done he would simply wait a week or so for the potion to be absorbed before returning and modifying the boy's memory to wipe out any indications that he was any different to anyone else. It was as simple and humane a way to stop monsters as he could think of. Of course all this was under the assumption that he would need to administer it in the first place, there was still a slim chance that Harry Potter wasn't a Dark Lord in waiting yet.

With the tiny vial of rusty red liquid slipped into his cuff and ready to deliver if needed, the headmaster set off back through the school to his office once more. "I'm off now, Fawkes," Albus said. He moved to his beautiful phoenix's golden perch and let his old hand roam over the bird's small soft head. "You know your part should I require it?" Fawkes gave a happy twill of confirmation. "Voila?" the headmaster asked, and the bird gave a duck of its bright red head in confirmation. With his plans made and his plots ready he left and made his way outside to the front of the school. "Good morning Minerva,' the headmaster called in greeting as he passed his deputy headmistress pushing a large wheel barrow full of gardening tools towards the quidditch pitch. "Capital day for it," he added. Unfortunately her bellowed greeting in return cannot be printed here, and Albus didn't pretend to understand all the words or even how he was meant to do all that to himself without some sort of hoist and pulley system. The huge iron gates flanked by the huge iron winged bores greeted him with a creak as they open automatically and let him leave his school and home before closing shut behind him. He set off whistling a tune as he walked down the road towards Hogsmeade as he had done a hundred times before, and once outside the anti-apparition wards he stopped and gave himself another final inspection. Yes, he certainly looked dapper, respectable, and most importantly of all muggle. With a pop, he vanished.

"Good morning," the headmaster chirped and gave a doff of his hat as he arrived between the knees of a big, rounded-shouldered man with a bountiful mess of shaggy brown hair and a bushy red beard. The bearded man didn't greet him, instead he just sat looking fearful and amazed with his jaw hinged open, his trousers down around his ankles, and the newspaper held in his hand shaking slightly. "Do you mind if I just sneak out? Thank you," Albus asked before throwing the lock on the cubical door and stepping out into the bathroom at large. The lavatory was at first glance and all subsequent glances not a nice looking place. There were footprints on the ceiling, one of the four sinks had been used in a manner not fit for purpose, and not an inch of wall had been spared in the pursuit of improvised street art or wanton violence. His yellow-tinged image shimmered and rippled on the floor as he waded towards the door and upon leaving he found that outside was not much better or fresher than inside. There was a strange sharp smell in the air, like burning rubber, and to his left he could hear an orchestra of dogs barking and to his right he could hear loud music heavy with base drumming away. Between him and these interesting diversions was a lot of dry brown grass intermixed with vast dusty spots of dry brown earth. It was apparently labelled a park by the muggles, but it looked more like scrubland to him.

His feet took him eastward where a trio of high rise flats that speared into the sky some far distance off acted as his guide. After several minutes of navigating the treacherous scrub and avoiding several dozen dog messes he was finally stepping onto a smooth slabbed street. He carried on eastward and there was a blaaaargh of a wheezing horn and he leapt off the road and back onto the pavement as a muggle autocar screeched past and very nearly run him down. His second attempt at crossing was aborted in a similar manner when a muggle healer autovan, sirens wailing and lights flashing, raced by. After this he defied his age and ran across the road as fast as he could before anything else tried to kill him. He made it just before a huge muggle autocar whizzed by, and its driver swore at him and called him rude names.

Just move towards the morning sun, he told himself and he did. When his eastward path was blocked he very sensibly navigated himself around it until he was facing east again and on and on he went for street after street, deadly road after deadly road. With a combination of sheer luck and what the headmaster liked to term skill, he caught a glimpse of his destination blighting the skyline ahead before long. It looked a most fortified and formidable fortress and it didn't get any less so the closer he got. Once stood at its base and craning his neck up to see the top he wondered for a moment if he was indeed at the right place. The towering barricade stood at least thirty feet high and was trimmed at the top with coil after coil of barbed wire. He circled around the wall to see if he could find any confirmation of him being at the right place. He found it eventually in the form of a much vandalised sign that still held a small remnant of the word Bolton written in gold. Could a delicate soul stand firm and proud in a place like this, or would the place crush and twist it, he wondered. Moving along he pressed his face to the barred gate to look beyond for signs of hope.

"Eugh!" The headmaster recoiled from the bars and hurriedly scraped a sticky brown something off his cheek, and then he carried on his observance from a little further back.

Sat amid a sea of old and cracked asphalt was a brick house that stood three stories high. It had a high pitched roof that was home to a number of stubby little chimneys. Front and centre on the ground floor was a front door painted black and around that was a total of nine small rectangular windows, each window made up of nine small rectangular panes held in place by once white frames. It looked so barren and bleak and so devoid of life beyond. There was no grass for children to play on, no eager little faces pressed up at the window, and not even any weeds growing between the cracks in the asphalt.

"What sort of monsters do you house?" Albus asked the foreboding place quietly and sombrely under his breath.

"The worse kinds, mister," a soft childish voice at his back answered. Albus turned around sharply to see a little boy of about 7 stood behind him. He wore trousers that were too big, a t-shirt that was too small, and a face that was too dirty. Flicking long, brown curly hair out of his face the boy looked up at the headmaster with huge hazel eyes that blinked owlishly. "T-The worse kind," he whispered again with a gulp and a nervous flick of those massive eyes left and right.

"Do you live here?" Albus asked. He gestured with a point of his finger at the portal he had turned his back to.

"Y'mister," the boy nodded. "'s not a nice place, mister. One time they 'eld me down and stuck pencils up my bum."

"Oh dear, that isn't very nice. And who did that?" Albus asked. Silently he prayed: Please don't say Harry Potter. Knowing something like that would make things so much more awkward.

"Bigger boys, mister," the boy answered and again the big doe eyes flicked left and right fretfully, as if expecting a rowdy bunch of pencil wielding maniacs to pounce. Yes, this was a soul crushing and character twisting place if Albus had ever seen one it seemed. What other place could make such a wonderful little boy so afraid.

Albus, seeing he had a knowledgeable witness to the horrors that lay inside decided to snoop and hopefully get some answers before he met Harry. "Tell me, are there any boys in there who are worse than the others, ones who you might say are strange and weird?"

"Y'mister. They're all pre'dy bad, but der's one or two who ar' worse, they-they—some of them are not very nice," he finished nervously and his little hand scratched at his head. "Y'got any money?" The little hand stopped scratching and was extended with a grubby palm held up.

Some things never change, Albus thought with a little sigh. He reached into back pocket and extracted his wallet and from it he pulled out a nice crisp ten shilling note. This should buy him all the answers he needed and more, and it should buy the boy as many sweets as he can stuff in his mouth. "Here you go," Albus held it out proudly.

"Phroaw!" the boy cried upon seeing a flash of paper money. In a blink he had it snatched out of Albus's fingers and was inspecting it in the light. "What the bloody hell is this?" he demanded, his soft wispy voice had turned into a sharp snappish tone.

"That, my lad, is ten whole shillings," Albus let his blue eyes twinkle merrily, "And it's yours if you would just divulge a little—"

"Piss off granddad!" The boy cut him off angrily and he tore the note up and tossed the pieces at Albus's feet. The big hazel eyes, narrowed and his soft little pink lips were now curled into a tight sneer. "What's the matter with you, you a retard or sommat?"

"What? No, I don't think so," Albus answered.

The boy started to back off the down the street, "Bet you'd give me some real money if I let you suck this!" he yelled as he grabbed his crotch and started to tug at it whilst stepping backward, "You paedo!" He enjoyed this last word so much that it became a chant growing louder and louder as he backed away. "Paedo...Paedo...Paedo!"

"I am not a—" Albus stopped and looked around nervously, a fashionably dressed man of his advancing years shouldn't be yelling _that_ word in the immediate area of a Care Home for Children, "paedophile," he whispered.

The boy didn't care, he was half way down the road now and still happily yelling his chant and sticking his fingers up in some strange muggle salute. Seeing he still had the headmaster's attention he stopped and bellowed, "FAGGOT!" at the top of his lungs, and to make sure Albus heard the message he cupped his hands around his mouth. With this last part said the boy turned and ran off. Albus took little joy in watching the boy trip over his over own shoes laces, but he did take a strange joy in casting the tripping hex that caused it.

"What a horrid little boy," he sniffed and turning back to the gate. His thumb worked the latch, but the latch didn't work properly. It rose with a creek and then fell with a click, he tried again and again with the same lack of result.

After getting thoroughly frustrated with the thing and getting no further in his investigations he was debating the use of a little wandless magic. After another failed attempt he was looking around for likely muggle witnesses and was about to work his magic when a disembodied voice proclaimed, 'you have to lift it, then pull the gate back, drop the latch so it slips under the hook, and then push the gate open,"

Albus followed these instructions and after two more failed attempts the gate swung open with a ear piercing shriek of warped metal being forced to work against its will. He took a tentative step into the oppressive forecourt of the orphanage and stopped at the sight of a boy stood just beside the gate inside. The teenager, who looked like he would be in Hogwarts's fourth year if he was invited, had short cropped hair. He was stood very relaxed with his back resting against the wall where it was accompanying his left foot, which he had been kicked up behind him.

"Good morning," Albus said politely.

The boy put a cigarette between his lips before lolling his head to the side so his dull blue eyes focused on Albus, "never mind about what Thumper says," were the boy's words of greeting. "He's a mouthy little shit who needs a good slap to put him in his place, that's all." With this said he craned his neck back and blew a plume of grey smoke upwards. "So, what do you want?" He asked when he'd exhaled.

"I am here to see Harry Potter," Albus said, knowing that this boy was possibly the best chance he had of finding the other boy.

"Hoity?" the boy said with another long exhale into the sky. "What you be needing to see him for?"

"I'm here to offer him a great opportunity," Albus said mysteriously and with a little smile."I'm the headmaster of a school, and Harry Potter might be eligible to attend."

The boy chuckled at first and then it turned into a loud guffawing laugh, "Well shit me backwards," he said between chuckles. "When Hoity said he was writing to a few schools, I honestly thought he was talking out of his arse. Never thought it would actually pay off. So which one are you from?"

Albus cursed in his mind, he really should have done more homework into his cover story. What was that school Justin Finch-Fletchly was down for? The one his puffed up father kept preening about and writing endless letters bemoaning the missed opportunity. Elton? Fenton? Beaton? Eton...Eton, that's it! "Eton," Albus called out suddenly as the name fell into place. "I'm from the Eton school."

"Really? That's pretty swanky," the boy said, and was so impressed he raised an eyebrow. He took a last long drag of his cigarette and it glowed in an orange arc as it was flicked away carelessly. Cigarette break over, he kicked off the wall and walked over to Albus as languid and precise as any viper would slither. "I don't mean to be rude, but you do gots some ID, right?"

"Hmm...Eye Dee? Identification? Oh yes," Albus suddenly cursed his flaky planning procedure once more and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. It was bulging with paper and identification cards, but none proclaimed him to be the headmaster of a muggle school. Thinking quick he gripped a laminated card that informed the reader that he was Albus Dumbledore – Trained Lifeguard and by the time he had extracted the card a little glamour made it proclaim him Albus Dumbledore – Headmaster of Eton School of Schooling. He held it out for the boy's scrutiny. The dull blue eyes scanned over it and inspected the unmoving photo against its real life counterpart.

"Looks legit," the boy said before introducing himself as, "Oliver Barton, people call me Oz." No hands were stuck out for shaking, instead they were stuffed into jean pockets and a booted foot kicked the asphalt. "Sorry about all that, but there's a lot of little kids here and some of them are right vulnerable."

"Do not apologise. I find the concern you exhibit for your friends' wellbeing a credit to you," Albus said with a disarming smile as he slid his wallet back in his pocket and took up station beside the boy as he walked.

"Now, to be absolutely frank with ya, I don't know if Hoity's in. He don't lounge around here if he can help it. Not that I blame him, the place is a dump." Oz finished in a mutter as he looked at the dump in question. "Spends a lot of his time out and about, can't rightfully say where he is and what he's up to, though."

"I see," Albus said and spying a perfect chance to do some snooping, because there is no better chance to find out the worst in a person than behind their back, he decided to ploy Oz with a few small questions. "May I ask why you call him Hoity?"

"Cause he talks kinda like you," Oz said with a shrug, "he's got a poncy accent and uses lots'a long words. I swear I can't understand him half the time for all the babble he says."

"So you're his friend?" Albus ventured, hoping to glance a spying glimpse into Harry Potter's private life and the influence he has on his friends.

"Hoity with friends?" Oz went on with a dry laugh. "Nah, you're barking up the wrong tree on that one, mate. He don't have friends, not in this place at least. Look sir," the boy stopped in his lazy walk and turned to look at the headmaster and then flicked his eyes to the building as if to confirm they were unnoticed. "Hoity worries people around here, and not in a good way. He don't fit into this place and this place ain't fit for him. He's too smart by half, too quiet, and he has an uncanny knack of being a little to-to—what's the word-where you see more than normal?"

"Perceptive?" Albus ventured a guess. He was only half listening now as he remembered with no fondness of another boy who worried his peers.

"P'ceptive, yeah, sounds right," Oz said with a nod of his head. "Too p'ceptive for most people in this place. If you want to take him away to some fancy school out in the country I'm sure he'd love it, and I'm more than sure he deserves it. But at the same time I'm sure a lot of people in this place would love to see him go to, just to be shot of him."

All this sounding all too much like an echo to Albus, the words and warnings reverberating across over half a century. Terrified peers, people uneasy and wanting him gone, smart and perceptive loner, and living in a loveless home. "Is he a good boy?" Albus asked out of desperation, trying to find some ray of light, some hope to cling to.

Oz started his languorous walk again and barked a laugh over his shoulder, "you are jokin'. A good boy in this place? HA!"

At a distance the black door looked stately and maybe even a little elegant with what appeared to be a sleek coat of black paint, but up close it took on the manifestation of a searing hell gate. The dull black paint had begun to peel and crack with age and in these torn fissures the bright red paint of an older time were beginning to bubble forth like fiery veins of lava running across the wooden expanse. This is a most fitting place for monsters, Albus thought with a shudder.

His new friend, Oz, didn't think twice about pushing open the plutonian door and striding on inside without a care. Albus, not to have his courage questioned, followed him in without a moment's hesitation. Inside he was hit by several things all at once, there was an uncommon cold, a lot of angry loud voices and thumping music, a foul permeating smell, and from his left a little rubber suction dart that stuck to his winkled temple.

"OI!" Oz's voice snapped out and he pointed a warning finger at a boy of about eight who had a plastic toy gun held in his hand. "You be careful with that thing or I'll break it, you hear. This is an important gentleman, and he ain't here for your amusement."

"It's quite alright. Here you go," Albus calmed the situation. He pulled the little suction dart off with a squelch and passed it back to the little boy who ran off after his friend.

Once he had acclimatised himself to the chill, to the noise, to the smell, and to the flying projectiles Albus looked around at the entrance hall he had been led into. Sixty some years ago he found Tom Riddle living in a place much like this. Maybe Tom's wreckage of a life had started in more squalor and more deprivation but it was no less bitter and bleak and desolate. The once white walls had turned yellow, the green linoleum floor had been worn through to expose black flagstones beneath, and a patch of mouldering damp ran across the top of the wall and along the ceiling.

"You alright with stairs?" Oz asked. "It's two flights you see, and I can always go on alone and bring him down for you, if that suits?"

"No, Ho—Elton, I mean, has many stairs that I have to contend with on a daily basis. Two more should do me no harm. In fact, I would say a change of step might do me wonders," Albus informed him with a soft smile.

"Fair enough," Oz replied without a further care, and he pushed open a set of double doors and vanished through them. Albus followed obediently, and as he was led he tried to find some beauty in the place, but he couldn't. Everything was ugly here, everything was run down, everything was depleted, everything was tarnished, everything was foul. Be it the dilapidated room with a half-dozen boys all cramped and crowded onto one dingy sofa so they could stare at some little picture box; the short dour corridors that seemed to be the staging ground for countless angry arguments, drumming loud music, and slamming doors; or even the creaking groaning switchback staircase that matched him for creaking and groaning with each step, everything was just so despondent and cheerless.

Harry's room was located at the end of one of the short noisy corridors with blue painted doors running up either side of its length. Each door had a little plastic tag nailed to it denoting them A through F and Harry's door had an E nailed onto his. Oz knocked on the door and waited, and then he knocked again. "Hoity, you in there?" he called out. There was no answer and after a respectful pause he pushed the door open and poked his head inside. "He's not here. If you want to wait, I'll just go and rush through the house to see if he's hiding somewhere."

Albus, not one to pass up the chance to see inside the inner sanctum as it were, nodded his agreement and thanked the boy profusely. Oz stepped out and Albus stepped in. He was greeted by a small room that whilst not dirty was certainly busy. There was a well made bed to his left and a desk and chair buried under a pile of open books and disorganised papers to his right, and above the desk there was a shelf of knick-knacks and such. In one corner there was a wardrobe with its doors shut and it's top cluttered with books, and a chest of drawers in another corner told a similar tale. Directly ahead of him there was a window with nine panes of glass and on the floor under it, spanning from one wall to the other was a row of more books, each one with its spine facing skyward. Between the books and the bottom of the window there was a radiator with clothes hung over it to dry. Albus felt his heart sink, there were no childish posters on the walls, no toys or amusing distractions to occupy an innocent mind, and not even any colourful sheets on the bed. Everything seemed utilitarian and fit-to-purpose, almost as if the occupier had no intention of never making it a home, even the muggle light bulb overhead was bare of a lamp shade.

Deciding to conduct this unpleasant character assessment as thoroughly as possible Albus clicked the door shut to seclude himself inside the room. Once alone he looked around and started to search for any clues as to Harry Potter's potential evil or perhaps even his innocence. He started with the wardrobe, an old favourite of an old adversary. Pulling open the doors he found a scant few articles of clothing hanging up on wire hangers, a pair of shoes kicked onto the floor, and not much else. The chest of drawers offered up similar result with two of the drawers being completely empty and the third drawer only lightly occupied with some t-shirts and underwear. Next he walked over to the desk where he found muggle textbooks and papers covered in an incredibly neat cursive hand documenting a range of subjects from mathematics to geography scattered about the surface. Seeing nothing of interest or incrimination in the books or the papers he turned his eyes to the shelf above it, which was really nothing more than a plank of wood nailed to a pair of L shaped brackets. Atop the shelf it seemed he would find a similar story, there was a little tin spiked with pencils and pens bursting from its top, a pair of thin books, a couple of keepsake boxes, a half eaten pack of muggle biscuits that had been twisted closed and a label declaring them H. Potters stuck to it, and besides that a bottle of muggle soda that was again half empty and labelled accordingly.

Albus, reached up an took the bottle down. He turned it around and around curiously to read the label and inspect the contents. Finally he unscrewed the lid and heard the hiss of escaping gas that he knew all too well made the drink almost lethal to a man of his years and delicate digestion.

"You can have a drink if you like," a soft voice said behind him. Albus startled so violently the bottle flew from his hands. He stumbled forward and caught it, then juggled the bottle as his fingers skimmed and slid over the slick plastic. By some miracle he managed to get the bottle under control and all without spilling a single drop. Breathing a sigh of relief, and clutching the wayward bottle to his chest he screwed the lid back in place.

Albus knew it was Harry Potter the moment his eyes fell upon him. Yes, the unruly and untameable black hair that was a staple of the Potter family had been cut to mere black stubble; and yes, he was wearing too small, too faded, too old, and too worn rags instead of the elegant robes and finery that you should find a Potter wrapped in; yes, no Potter would ever be so close to malnourished; but he had Lily Evan's eyes. Those huge emerald green orbs sat behind round lens glasses and seemed to light up the room with a glance. They were so beautiful and so alluring and that made them all the more dangerous. "Good morning, you must be Harry Potter?" Albus greeted him as if he was a stranger.

"Yes sir," Harry said, "You must be Albus Dumbledore, Head of Eton School of Schooling, Chief Fire Marshal for The East Sussex Fire Department, Registered and Licensed Trainer of Attack Dogs, Forklift truck driver, Ambassador to the Republic of Perloja, Fitness trainer, Licensed gas fitter, Officer in the Welsh Guards, and several others I won't care to mention. I don't know if I should call you Albus, sir, your lordship, Lieutenant general, Ambassador, Father, Doctor, or even just plain mister."

"Excuse me?" Albus said as he took all this in and was left somewhat confused by it all. Although he had to admit some of that did sound oddly familiar.

Harry's answer was to hold up Albus's bulging wallet with its many licenses and documentation, "You had the misfortune of running into Oz on the way in, and Oz had the fortune of running off with your wallet," Harry explained.

"Why that cheeky-!" Albus cried as his hand slapped against his back pocket and found it was indeed empty.

"He's about as sneaky a thief as you're likely to find, sir," Harry explained politely and Albus took the proffered wallet back. "The minute he informed me of his part in your arrival, I politely requested he return whatever he had stolen. That is what I got."

"Thank you very much," Albus said absentmindedly as he peered inside and started to ruffle through his various items.

"He said it was all junk and rubbish anyway, and that all your money was older than Matron's knickers and just as worthless. Alas, I counted it and found you had two one pound notes and a ten shilling note. I'm not sure if that's all accounted for, but there you go."

"Yes, it's all there. Thanks you again," Albus said as he pocketed the wallet. He didn't know if he should be grateful for the calm and casual manner the boy was exhibiting, or distrustful of it. He knew being confronted with a sneering feral beast with a demonic glint in his eye and curses on his lips would have made his task much easier, but Harry wasn't. What he wanted, what he needed, was to catch the boy's green eyes. With a little glimpse he could use his occlumency to slip inside and intercept some of the forethoughts that were careening through the boy's brain, and with them answer so many questions. However, that would require direct eye contact and between his eyes and Harry's there were two sets of glasses to bypass.

"When Oz said the headmaster of Eton College was sat in my bedroom I was a little suspicious, but I held out hopes that you were indeed Eric Anderson and that you really were here to finally drag me away from this place. Then, after looking in that wallet, I'm not so sure what to believe about you," Harry said sadly. Again, Albus would have wished for more anger and more sneering, but he didn't get it, there was just morose sadness and a slump in the boy's shoulders as he spoke.

"I must confess, I might have been somewhat less than honest to your sneaky friend upon my arrival," the headmaster explained softly before turning around and putting the bottle back on the shelf above the desk. "I hope that after I explain myself, and you understand and appreciate my purpose for being here, you will forgive my need for being a little surreptitious in my approaching you. May I take a seat?"

"Be my guest," Harry said as he stepped inside his own room like an intruder and pulled the cheap plastic chair out from under the desk. "I'm afraid it's going to have to be this or the bed. I'm a little short on seating."

"This is more than adequate," the headmaster said as he lowered himself into a chair and watched the boy keenly as he took a seat on the bed opposite. He even moved like Tom, subtle and controlled. After a moment's silence he drew in a breath and decided to tackle this by going straight for the jugular and not pussyfoot about. "Harry, may I ask if anything unusual has happened to you?"

The instant Albus said it he knew he'd struck a chord. Harry's pupils shrunk to pinpoints, his hands curled up into fists on his knees, and his body tightened up and hunkered down as if ready to fight or flee. With his body poised on the edge of attacking or fleeing, Harry sat silent for a moment and appeared to think this question through. "Well sir, I currently live in an orphanage with forty-three other children many of whom are either dependant on drugs and alcohol, prescribed medication to control a wide range of psychological disorders, or who are scarred and damaged by neglect and abuse. You ask if anything unusual has happened to me, and I can certainly say yes. For instance last week I was awoken to find a teenage boy stood over me. He was masturbating into a bag of chips whilst watching me sleep and muttering about the purple bluebells. This is indeed unusual for most people, but not for residents of Bolton and Albright."

The headmaster tried to keep the cringe off his face at these words and the images they conjured up, and for the most part he succeed, "no, that's not what I meant," he said thickly. "I am referring to things more directly related to you personally. I'm speaking of things happening unexpectedly and unexplainably when you've been upset or afraid or in pain. Can you think of any times like that?"

Again, Albus got his answer in a heartbeat as Harry nervously licked his lips and his eyes flicked to the window and then back again. His lips moved silently and he no doubt wanted to say something, but the headmaster's duplicity earlier had stilled his voice. After not finding his voice, Harry silently turned his head to look at the door and appeared to think again. Albus continued to await an answer, but all he got was a clickclick noise. A second later it sounded again and realising it was coming from the door he turned to look.

The door, as barren and bleak as the room it guarded, had an old mortice lock and in the keyhole was a big key. Albus watched it rattling and jerking in its hole, almost as if it was a trapped animal that was trying it's hardest to free itself. Clickclick, the key shook and click...click it jerked left and right in a frenzy. Albus turned back to Harry and saw him still focusing on the door and more importantly the lock. Turning back to the door he was fortunate enough to watch the key turn harshly and hear the loud clunk as the bolt was thrown.

"Things like that?" Harry asked, his voice shallow and somewhat pained.

Albus felt a cold lead weight drop in his stomach and the blood in his veins stilled as he was presented with this waking horror. He gave an awkward nod of his head to answer Harry's question and maybe confirm his suspicions and legitimise his course of action. "Yes, things like that," he mumbled.

**A/N: Oh noes, it's super Harry! Well, not really. I hope to have a plausible reason for Harry's sudden proficiency with magic in the next chapter.**


	5. Peculiarities

**Disclaimer: I've merely borrowed these playthings from JK Rowling's toy box. I'm sure she doesn't know that I've borrowed them, and I'll most likely return them in good condition before she does. If I do accidentally break one, never fear, I'm pretty good with glue and spellotape.**

**Chapter 4 – Peculiarities**

Five months ago, Harry had been practically dragged through that screaming iron gate and across the charcoal grey sea of asphalt to _that_ building's front door. He half expected that Ms Russet would raise a hand and deliver three ponderous knocks that resounded with ominous echoes to the door, but she didn't. What he got instead was her just delivering a light kick to the wood and it swinging open—it didn't even give a loud shuddering creak as it did so. He was led in and had stood trembling in that grotty entrance way listening to the barrage of noise that assaulted him and trying to find some glimmer of hope in all the dreariness. Ms Russet had just stood silently at his side, her hand gripping his to stop him making a quick escape, and waited for him to digest the full horror of his situation.

"Where's Matron?" the brown clad woman asked a young boy who had lumbered through a door with a round of buttered toast clamped between his teeth and a cup of steaming tea in his hand. He seemed caught unaware by both the sudden question and their appearance, and he bit down on the toast in surprise, leaving it hanging precariously from a narrow tendril of crust. After recovering himself and saving his breakfast he silently gestured with his cup towards a door, and in the process made a small wave of brown liquid flow over the lip and splashing onto the linoleum floor. Answer delivered, he gave a little sad look to the lost beverage before issuing a shrug of disinterest at the messy puddle and leaving.

More tugging, more pulling on Ms Russet's part; more protests, more reluctance on his as he was marched forward to a door that had been painted white with thick messy brushstrokes. Ms Russet did knock ominously this time, three rhythmic raps that were answered with a grunted "C'min," from within. Inside sat a woman who was wide in the shoulders and thick in the neck, her face looked like it had been the happy chew toy for a bulldog, and her course gray hair was cut into a short buzz cut very reminiscent of US Marines. Her office was tiny, dry and cheerless, it's one concession to decor was a pink framed clock on the wall. Besides the clock and the metal table at which she sat there was grey filing cabinets lining each and every wall with a solitary gap in the formation to make room for the door. Wedged in between the cabinets and the metal table was a solitary metal chair that had been ill used and was starting to rust. Ms Russet helped herself to this amenity immediately and sat on the very edge with her feet curled up below her and crossed at the ankles.

"New boy, hmm?" Matron had said. The various folds and winkles in her face shifted and an eyebrow quirked up in question of the new boy. Harry stood as meek and polite as possible, half hoping that the woman might refuse to take him if he looked depressed and sorrowful enough.

"Yes matron," Ms Russet answered. She heaved her bulging bag up onto the table with a clang and dug through it to find a little slip folder, she pulled it open and handed it over. "Harry Potter, eleven-years-old, formally fostered to a couple in Oxford."

"Troublemaker?" Matron asserted gruffly. She held up the pair of spectacles that hung on a chain around her neck as if they were a magnifying glass and read the sheet through them quickly before letting them drop again.

"No, not as far as I know," Ms Russet said.

"Hmm, forgive me for being sceptical, but I've heard that story before," Matron snorted loudly. "There's gotta be a reason for them to give him up, and sure as stink after a shit it's for trouble making." Five months ago Harry had audibly gasped at the foul language and course manner, and hearing that the woman turned her beady eyes on him and appeared to smile, "well, what is it?" she demanded of him. "What they give you up for, if it weren't makin' trouble?"

Harry had turned and looked to Ms Russet for help, but all she did was turn in her chair and stare back him expectantly. Seeing as help wasn't coming and knowing he'd have to provide his own response he drew in a breath and said, "Richard, my foster father, was accepted to lead a department at the University of Sydney. He said the weather would be better for his ailment and that his brother, who lives there, would be glad for the company. Despite their best efforts I couldn't emigrate with them."

"Hmm," the woman snorted again. She picked up the glasses again and read through them again before dropping them again. "So what do you like to do with yourself?"

Harry again turned to Ms Russet for help but she merely blinked back and awaited the answer. He gulped and said, "I-I like horse riding, playing the piano, and—"

"I'm sure you'll learn to stop liking that stuff," Matron cut him off with a dismissive wave of her large swollen man-hand. "I'm afraid we're a little short on pianos around here, same goes for 'orses. Got a park and some board games."

"He's a keen reader," Ms Russet interjected then.

"We've got some magazines. The brutes in this place don't read them, mind. Just cut out the lingerie models and draw boobs on the men." Matron offered with a snort of disgust. She finally turned her gaze away from Harry, which was nice, and fixed it on Ms Russet, "I suppose you want a S29 and EE7 from me?"

"Yes please, Matron, I have my own EE4 form here, and it just needs your signature," Ms Russet said primly as she once again dived into the big bag.

Matron got up and it only now that Harry had opportunity to notice that her left leg was a metal and plastic prosthetic. She grabbed up a walking stick that hung off the edge of the table and hobbled awkwardly towards a filing cabinet, with a rattling clank she yanked the drawer open and removed two counterfoil forms before rattling the thing shut again and hobbling back and dropping down in her seat.

Harry was left mostly ignored then as the two women bent over the desk and filled in their various forms and exchanged information. "You got any allergies?" matron demanded at one point, and Ms Russet turned and shot him a lightning fast smile as she supplied a cheerful, "I'm sure he's very excited about joining Gallowtree Road Primary School and making new friends, aren't you?"

Harry answered in the negative to both of these queries, but it had no effect on the proceedings. The forms were completed, signed, inspected, and swapped in short order. The pair of women exchanged some awkward small talk before Ms Russet slapped the leather flap of her bag shut, stood up, and shouldered it.

"Good bye Harry, and good luck," she said with a shake of his hand and a final flash of smile. "I'll see myself out, good bye, Matron," she said with a final turn and nod at the old woman. With those words she left and Harry had not seen her since. Left alone with the old woman she stared at him with dull brown eyes and the uneven snort and rumble of her breath filled the air. Harry stared at the floor with equal intensity and pretended he didn't notice her watching.

Suddenly she snatched up her walking stick in her huge fist, and he in a flash of quick thinking leapt backwards into a filing cabinet to get out of its wicked reach. She swung the cane around in a huge arc, but it wasn't aimed at him. The thing crashed against one of the filing cabinets with a loud BONG noise and then she swung it across in a wide arc and smashed it into another filing cabinet on her other side with a bang BANG. "COME ON!" she bellowed loudly and at apparently nobody as she carried on beating the filing cabinets like a huge out of tune bell. "I KNOW ONE OF YOU CAN HEAR ME, COME ON!"

After a moment of calamity making and general bellowing the door was cracked open and a tall teenage boy pushed his face into the office, "yeah?" he said innocently.

"New boy," Matron informed him with a point of her walking/drum stick at Harry, who was still stood firmly in the corner trying his best not to mess himself. "He's in room 2E. Key is in that drawer," she pointed with her long drum stick once more. The boy shuffled inside, and making sure to keep his distance he pulled the drawer open and extracted a single key attached to a plastic fob. "Show him around and get him settled in. Go on, away with the pair of ya."

Harry had thanked the woman (for what he didn't know, but it seemed the polite thing to do), and followed the boy outside into that drab entrance way. The minute Matron's office door was shut his guide pushed the big key into Harry's hand. "Your room's down that corridor there and two floors up. You can't miss it."

That concluded his tour.

Traversing the orphanage with his large suitcase gripped tightly in his hand, Harry soon became amazed that they had managed to take four semi-reputable photographs of the place. He kept his feet moving in the directions provided and did his best to ignore everyone and everything he saw of his new home as he went. He arriving at his new bedroom and pushing open the door saw what passed for every modern convenience required by law entailed. Stepping inside he gently pushed the door shut; locked it; sat on his creaking smelly bed; and wept until he was sure he had no more tears left, then after a little moment of clarity and cheek wiping, he proved himself wrong and wept some more.

That was how he spent his first day, and with the sun threatening to set, and himself actually cried dry and thoroughly miserable, he carefully unpacked his suitcase of the clothes and oddments he had packed. The smell of his freshly laundered clothes was heavenly, and if he shut his eyes, buried his nose, and inhaled he could pretend for a few moments that he was still there, and happy. Then the sound of people yelling or feet thumping would drag him back to reality and the strange smell of cat pee that seemed to cut through the air. At the bottom of his suitcase there was a copy of Lord of The Flies, a book he had hoped to tide him over until he could get his hands on more. That mere stopgap of a story served as a last feeble connection to the life he had left and the people he had loved. He curled up on the small bed with its thin lumpy mattress, faced the wall to blot out the room and let the rest of the world fall away. He soon found himself lost in the words and the adventures of Piggy, Ralph, and the Beast, and found it was much better place to be.

Night fell, as it often did, and not being brave enough to venture outside he prepared for bed without leaving his room. The noise and energy in the building didn't relent, and no one showed any respect for people trying to sleep. Boys talked and walked and messed around outside his door without a care, and then there was the busy and noisy city that surrounded him on all sides for miles around to consider too. Just as he was beginning to fall into blessed sleep he was startled awake by the door to his room crashing open violently. Two big boys spilled inside. One boy had the other in a headlock and was smashing a fist into his face, and the head-locked boy was busily hammering punches as hard as he could into the other boy's back. They were screaming and snarling as they fought and Harry scrambled out of bed and backed himself into the corner with his wardrobe. He had never seen a real brawl before, they didn't happen at his old school or his old neighbourhood. The brutality and the noise was terrifying, and he found his heart pumping wildly in fear and his hands trembling. The fearsome pair rolled further into his room, still locked in combat, and he could do little more than stare on with growing shock and mounting horror. Bracing his legs against the floor he tried his hardest to push deeper into the corner and away from the fray, and with a schlup noise he was suddenly not in the room anymore, but was instead in the wardrobe. He soon realised that the sight of the wardrobe door inches before his nose was far more pleasant than the two combatants, and so he decided to stay there. It was just a shame the meaty slap of punches landing, the wet snorts of blood being sniffed back up noses, and the grunts of agony still made it to his ears. The noise was terrible and plugging his ears only did so much.

How the fight progressed, he didn't know. But in time the pair undoubted tumbled and punched their way out again and the sounds of their battle dwindled down the corridor where eager spectators arrived and started to cheer for a bloody outcome. He pushed open the door after a few minutes of quiet solitude (and yes, maybe a few more tears), and after making sure they were indeed very much gone and unlikely to trouble him again, he stepped out and shut his bedroom door once again.

"I wonder how you would explain away that Peculiarity, Dad," Harry had said to his far away and absent foster father who was no doubt preparing for bed as he spoke. Harry approached the wardrobe and ran his hand over the wood in wonder, it was certainly a real wooden door, no trickery involved. "I'm sure the door was ajar slightly, and you sort of squidged in through the gap," he affected the man's accent and chuckled at himself sadly as he remembered the man fondly.

Peculiarities was a term coined by Richard years ago to explain the tall tales and childish fancy that Harry seemed to specialise in. It was always said in a somewhat patronising way, like a parent might say 'friend' when referring to the invisible manifestation their child had grown attached to. When people witnessed these Peculiarities with their own eyes, they began to make huge illogical leaps in sensible thinking to rationalise them, and when that failed they blamed the perspective or the angle they saw everything from. Whatever happened, no one ever believed him.

What was peculiar about the Wardrobe Peculiarity wasn't the event itself, they were all very much strange and mysterious, but the frequency of it. He could have counted all the Peculiarities he had experienced in six years with Richard and Liza on one hand, but that day five months ago he had experienced two in less than twenty-four hours.

Two days after that brawl, and the peculiar result of it, he had been foolish enough to put his expensive clothes in the wash and fully expecting to retrieve them freshly washed and dry upon completion, he didn't. As he would later learn was the norm in Bolton and Albright, your clothes were common property as far as the boys were concerned. You went to the laundry room, you took what you wanted and if you didn't get your own clothes back you took someone else's and hoped they fit. What wasn't the norm in Bolton and Albright was for the person who had done the pilfering to be left naked in the pizza aisle at Tescos and the clothes they had been wearing to pop back into existence before their very upset and angry owner.

A week later, one of the boys had 'a fit', which was local parlance for a complete mental breakdown or drug-induced psychosis. He had begun screaming bloody murder as he ran around the building punching and kicking at shadows and when that failed to be effective he wet himself. He had in his anguish scraped long gory trails down his face with his fingernails and sliced his forearm open on a window pane, but he showed no sign of pain or trauma. He had eventually ended up rolling around on the asphalt outside like an oversized baby kicking his feet and slamming his hands down as if throwing a tantrum.

"Shut up ya noisy bastard," someone had helpfully shouted out of a window, and then lobbed a shoe at the boy below. Harry, who had in the last nine days grown so acclimatised to all this havoc and mayhem, had sat quite unmoved and uncaring at his desk. He was hell bent on escaping this hell hole and was busily writing letters begging every public school and governing body up and down the country for some form of bursary fund or government scheme to help him. He hadn't expected the shoe to make a return trip to the Care Home through his window, but it did and it shattered a pane of glass as it did so. Startled by this, and his survival instincts now finally tuned, Harry had dived for cover and only when he was safe did he stop to consider the situation. Peeking out from under his bed he turned and saw the projectile hovering in mid air with shimmering shards of glass suspended around it. Then, as if changing its mind, the shoe retreated back the way it came and the glass flew back into place to remake the single pane of glass. There was an "Ow!" as the shoe struck home below for the second time that night. Harry could still turn his head to this day and see the single gleaming pane of shiny brand new glass surrounded on all sides by its grubby counterparts. A reminder that it wasn't all in his mind or a strange coincidence.

After watching that shoe fly back through a window that remade itself, he had begun to take a very keen interest in his Peculiarities and what they were. There was no denying that they were real now, no slight doubt in his mind that it could have been a mistake, and no one to discourage him from investigating them. With so many Peculiarities to consider, and new ones presenting themselves on an almost daily basis inside Bolton and Alright, he didn't need to be Einstein to start making very interesting connections. Very strong and often very negative emotions, he thought, seemed to be the key.

He found making himself angry very difficult, he wasn't an angry person by and large; and you couldn't manufacture being depressed, that sort of emotion needed to bubble up inside of you with genuine heartache and gut wrenching misery. So he turned to pain, which was something you couldn't trick the body into and was created surprisingly easy. Armed with new knowledge of his Peculiarities, a sketchy plan, a borrowed table lamp, endless hours hiding in his room away from thugs and psychopaths, and some burnt fingers he made leaps and bounds on the understanding of his Peculiarities. He had learnt over a few weeks to twist his wild and spontaneous outbursts into something that bordered on a controllable asset. He could make things move, and he could make things float, and the only drawback seemed to be an excruciating pain that lanced through his brain, almost as if he'd been eating too much ice-cream. It was this unexpected side effect that he had been trying, with very little success, to get rid of.

So that brought him to this point in space and time, locked in a room with a strange man who had just described his Peculiarities. The question Harry was trying desperately to answer now was: How much could he trust the man. Discounting the floor sweeping white beard and hair you were still left with a man who looked more than a little dodgy. His suit would have been more suiting on a Victorian gentleman, but a Victorian gentleman wouldn't have his hat on backwards, nor would he have his trousers tucked into his socks, and nor would he have tucked his beard into his belt. There was his strange wallet to consider as well, with money from the fifties, a ration book from the war, postage stamps featuring the king's head, telegrams so old hey had faded, and of course his many ID's and business cards. No doubt the man was really Albus Dumbledore, every single one of his ID's said so.

"That is quite a remarkable show," Albus Dumbledore said. Harry, blinked away the pain and turned to see his old face was set as hard as stone, and a small smile that didn't reach his eyes, was pulled across his lips. "How long have you known about—that," he flicked his hands towards the lock to indicate it in some roundabout way.

Harry, wanting truth decided to give him a truthful answer, "I've always had some notion that I was—"

"Special?" the man interrupted.

"No, I wouldn't go so far to say special. I'd say I'm different," Harry corrected. "Things use to happen around me that people went to great lengths to explain away, even if they didn't quite explain it. They came to be known as my Peculiarities and whilst they didn't happen often, I knew that they happened. Then I came to live in this place, where anger and fear are sometimes your best friends, they're certainly with you through thick and thin,' Harry admitted with a humourless chuckle.

"I see," Albus Dumbledore said, "and I assume that you have been so angry and so filled with hate that you began to experience your Peculiarities more and you started to understand a connection between them?"

"Hmm, something like that," Harry admitted as he looked down at his still tender fingertips, "I couldn't get myself that angry or upset, so I induced pain by touching a light bulb and recorded the results." Standing up from the bed Harry approached his shelf and took down one of the thin work books. Inside was 133 reports all written in a simple ROT13 cipher that was most likely beyond the cryptanalysis of his current housemates (although Barry, the autistic boy who was on the floor below might crack it given time). Harry opened the book and handed it over to Albus Dumbledore.

"So what brought upon the angry and hate that sparked a flurry of Peculiarities?" the man asked as he tried to make sense of the strange markings himself.

"Harrumph, are you seriously asking that?" Harry laughed, and carried on sarcastically, "after all, what have I got to be angry and hateful about when I live here: In the place where dreams are made." He threw his arms out to indicate his bedroom and Bolton and Albright at large. "Don't let the occasional threat of being brutally stabbed to death in your sleep and then having your still warm corpse defecated on put you off, this is a dream factory."

"That seems a little extreme," the man said absentmindedly as his eyes once more turned to the book in his hand.

"This is an extreme place," Harry sighed and decided to reign in the sarcasm. He ran his hand over the short stubble of black hair on his head. You learnt soon enough that long hair in Bolton and Albright was not only an invite to having it pulled out, but also an invite to an entire army of parasites and ticks to live in it. He went on wistfully, "I lived in a big six-bedroom house in the middle of Oxford, and I had my own bedroom and my own bathroom. My foster parents were a Professor and a Veterinarian and they took a great and wonderful interest in me. They hired tutors and I had piano lessons. At dinner time we would debate things and discuss literature and science, and at bedtime I would read them a story. It was beautiful and it was loving and it was wonderful. I attended Dragon School. No one here believes me when I say that there is such a school, they think I'm making it up and that I believe in a school where they actually teach dragons. But no, I attended Dragon School with its motto Arduus ad Solem emblazoned under a golden dragon. I wore wool and silk and my clothes had designer labels in them. I played for the school football team and I went kayaking and rock climbing at—the—are you even listening?"

"Hmm...no sorry," the old man admitted as he looked up from the book, his thin bony finger was tracing under the lines and his lips were moving softly as he read. "I was just trying to read this, it's not very enlightening. You were saying?"

"Nothing, I was just explaining why I was so upset," Harry muttered, a little more sarcasm was needed it seemed. "Nothing important."

"I'm sorry. Please do go on," Albus Dumbledore said and he snapped the book shut and put it aside.

"What I suppose I'm saying is, is that I'm not quite cut out for living in inner city London," Harry admitted. "I know that probably sounds awfully snobbish, but it's true and I frankly don't care. I live in possibly the worst part of London, and there's barely a day that goes by free from the snap of gunfire or the wail of police sirens. I share a bathroom with nearly a dozen people and not all of them have quite figured out what all the various porcelain things are for. My school English teacher pronounces hyperbole as hyper-bole and my maths teacher needs a calculator to teach preteens how to do tell the time. At the weekends the common choice of leisure time activities are somewhat limited to either watching bawdy 60's comedies in the lounge or roaming around the area in a huge pack, almost like rabid animals, and mugging unsuspecting people. Are you starting to understand what is upsetting me?"

"I fear that does sound all a little bleak," the headmaster said. "Have you tried making friends?"

"You don't make friends in this place," Harry muttered dismissively, "the place is far to transient for friendship. You might garner an associate or more likely a accomplice, but no relationship in this place would stand up after a bad argument." Harry, his peace said smoothed out a winkle on his bedsheets and let silence reign for a moment. "Sir, I've been rather candid and forthcoming so far, would you mind returning the favour. What is strange about me? Why can I do that?" Harry gestured to the door lock.

"I suppose it would only be fair for me to give you some answers, would it not," the old man smiled and his blue eyes seemed to sparkle like milky sapphires. "To answer many of your questions, and to save the few breathes I have left in my body, I would like to present to you a letter." He held his hand out before him, palm up, "Voila!" he cried out. There was a whoosh and a coil of orange fire erupted in the air between them and no sooner had it exploded did it extinguish leaving nothing in its wake but a hot burning smell and a thick cream envelope. The old man had to carry on smiling as the envelope fell, missing his outstretched hand by a few inches, and hit the floor with a dejected flup noise. "That would have been a whole lot more impressive if it had landed…erm…landed in my hand," he said sheepishly. "Bit of a miscalculation I think there. Sorry."

Harry shuffled forward off his bed and scooped the envelope up off the floor and found it was addressed to him in the most exacting manner. "This is mine?" he asked to be sure.

"Yes, it's yours and you are free to open it," Albus Dumbledore said with a big smile spreading over his face. He picked up Harry's coded notebook once more and started to read again.

Harry snapped the wax seal with some reverence and extracted two sheets of thick parchment, and bending his head over the pages began to read.

**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry  
**

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

Dear Mr Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress

Harry snapped his eyes up to see if the Headmaster was chuckling to himself at a prank well done, or to catch him giving snide looks at a hidden camera buried somewhere in the room. He half-expected Jeremy Beadle to burst in with a microphone and a film crew to tell him he was to be on You've Been Framed next Saturday. But the Headmaster was still sat there reading Harry's book and made no sign of doing anything other.

"Is this for real?" Harry asked. The old man flicked his eyes up casually and gave a little nod before throwing them down again to continue his reading. Harry, seeing that was his answer, turned to the next sheet.

**First-year students will require:**

Uniform

Three Sets of Plain Work Robes (Black)  
One Plain Pointed Hat (Black) for day wear  
One Pair of Protective Gloves (dragon hide or similar)  
One Winter Cloak (Black, silver fastenings)

Please note that all student's clothes should carry name-tags.

Books

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk  
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot  
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling  
A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch  
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore  
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger  
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander  
Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart  
Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart  
Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart  
Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart  
Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart  
Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart  
Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart

Other Equipment

1 Wand  
1 Cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)  
1 set of glass or crystal phials  
1 telescope  
1 set of brass scales

Students may also bring an Owl OR a Cat OR a Toad.

**PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS.**

Harry did another quick check for signs of a potential practical joke being sprung. The Headmaster, apparently bored with Harry's coded words was now busily inspecting his fingernails and doing his best to apparently ignore Harry. No doubt feeling Harry's gaze he looked up and met his eyes again.

"It's all true you know," he said with some confidentiality. "Magic and Hogwarts, it's all very true. Perhaps you would like a demonstration of magic?'

"I thought I already provided one," Harry said, his brain still a little behind the times with all the information being thrown at him.

"Indeed, and delightful it was," Headmaster Dumbledore informed him with almost agog appreciation. "But I thought maybe a demonstration from someone else might dissuade you from the notion that this is all somehow a big practical joke."

"Sure, I mean...I've never seen anyone else do...magic," Harry had to work his mouth around the new term. It certainly fit better than Peculiarities.

"Very well. Do you mind if I do a demonstration with some selfish inclination and change this chair into something more comfortable? I fear my old body is no longer appreciative of small comforts; it requires comforts that are large, soft, and squishy."

"Please," Harry said and gestured for the headmaster to do whatever he liked. The old man rose and withdrew from his tiny waistcoat pocket a long stick similar to the baton wielded by a conductor only more ornate. He turned, flicked it towards Harry's faded plastic chair, and with a pop the chair was gone and in its place there was a large burgundy chesterfield armchair that bulged with stuffing.

"That's better," the headmaster said, and gave a contented smile and a loud squeak of leather as he settled back down.

Harry, just to be sure, leaned forward and pressed a finger into the soft supple leather and trailing it down felt one of the huge studs that gave the chair its distinctive appearance. It was certainly real, and it was certainly not the plastic back crippler that it was before. "That's amazing," he breathed, "but I don't think I could do that. It makes my head explode just locking a door or moving a sheet of paper. Doing something like that would undoubtedly make my brain melt out of my ear."

"You're forgetting two things, Harry," the headmaster said with another sparkle in his blue eyes. "First, I am using a wand, a sort of conduit for your magical energy; and second, I am very old and graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with a complimenting array of magical qualifications. You, on the other hand, have been employing your magic without the helpful guidance of a wand and more crucially without the benefit of seven years of magical schooling under your belt. Believe me, both make a world of difference."

"A wand?" Harry said as he read the equipment list again and saw it written there. "Like that?" he pointed at the one the headmaster held in his hand.

"Indeed, very much like this," the old man nodded his head.

"Can I see it?" Harry asked.

"Certainly," the headmaster said, and in a move so smooth you could see your face in it, he extracted a second wand from his sleeve and held it out to Harry, whilst the first wand was slipped back into his waistcoat pocket. Harry didn't take offence to it, maybe wands were private and personal things, like toenail clippers or a toothbrush. He took the wand with great care. It didn't look much, the boys who took wood-shop at school would be able to knock one out on a lathe in no time. Bit of knurling around the handle, a band here, smoothed down with a sandpaper and you'd be done. He sighted down it, there was a tiny bow in the wood, the children at school would make it better no doubt. "Your own wand will be a much better match to your magical core and work with much greater efficiency and power," the headmaster explained.

Harry pointed the wand at his desk and concentrated, he poured his entire being into focusing on a single sheet of paper that sat atop the pile of work. The old man, the room, the care home, the world fell away into oblivion and all that remained was himself and the sheet of the paper. After a moment he watched it twitch and a corner curl into the air before the rest joined it. Like a leaf caught in a breeze it rose, turned, and glided back to the table. The effect wasn't what interested Harry though, it was the lack of pain. There might be a little tingle in his forehead, but nowhere near as violent as his previous attempts. "Wow," he said with raised eyebrows, "that works amazingly well, I hardly felt it."

"Hmm, you mentioned feeling pain earlier," the headmaster said and steeped his fingers under his hairy chin. "Let me guess, you get a sharp stabbing pain right behind the eyes?"

"Yes sir," Harry said.

"Ah, you see that is magical backlash, my boy. You're exerting a huge amount of magical energy and your core is rebelling against it. To stop the pain and to effectively funnel the power to where it needs to go we use a combination of incantations, gestures, and of course wands. For instance," he drew his very ornate and decorative wand from his waistcoat once more. "With a swish and a flick and a Wingardium Leviosa," he performed the said actions and said the said words. The paper Harry had managed to jerk into the air earlier rose like it was caught on a pillow of air. "A simple levitating charm. I ask that you don't tell Professor Flitwick I was teaching his subject, he'll get into a huff over it and never forgive me."

"Wingardium Leviosa," Harry said as he too swished and flicked the wand and was rewarded with a repeat performance, if a little jagged and jerky. Harry sat amazed, not only because of the result, but because there wasn't even a flicker of pain. His Peculiarities for the first time in his life felt magical, and it was wonderful. He did it again and the headmaster politely took the wand back. Harry took the hint and instead turned his attention back to the letter. His eyes ran over the supplies list, cauldron, telescope, robes, and books. Buying this Gilderoy Lockhart collection alone could possibly set him back £200 if they were good sturdy textbooks. "It sounds great," Harry said as his situation came crashing back down on him like a tonne of bricks and a horrid doubt rose up in him, "but I don't think I can attend. I'm not exactly flush with money, and all this sounds very expensive."

The headmaster gave Harry one of his glittery looks over his glasses. "You have nothing to fear in regards to money. I can assure you that your parents left you a rather substantial trust fund."

"My parents?" Harry almost accused. He'd spent his entire life trying to ignore his parents or at least pretend they had never existed. The key word was tried, it was a very difficult thing to achieve and he had spent a great many waking hours wondering who they were and why they left him. "What do you know about my parents?"

The headmaster seemed to age in a second at this question, his shoulders slumped, his face sagged, and his lips moved as if experimenting with some words before he spoke, "Alas, I knew your parents well. I was headmaster when they attended Hogwarts. They were fine, just, upstanding, and brave a witch and wizard as you were like to meet, and I miss them dearly."

This hit Harry like a brick. He had never known anything about his parents, not even their names. By all accounts he was abandoned with just his own name and date of birth pinned to a blanket along with twenty pounds when he was just a baby. He kept his emotions in check as best he could and asked, "so they are—were a witch and a wizard?"

"Indeed, Lily and James Potter. I'm sorry to say they were tragically taken from us shortly after your birth. I must confess, I fear, that I was the executor of their estate and it was I who entrusted your care to your aunt and uncle in Surrey. I fear they mustn't have taken to you and shortly after abandoned you."

"I-I didn't know," Harry stuttered as he tried to cobble his thoughts together into something that functioned. He had faint recollections of a fat man and a horse rattling around in his early childhood along with a couple of other Care Homes and foster parents that hadn't worked out. "What happened to them?"

"It's a horrible tale, but one I would not deny you," the headmaster said. "Would you care to hear it now or would you rather hear it at some later date?"

"Now, would be nice," Harry said. He'd waited ten years for answers and he considered that long enough.

"There was a war, I suppose you could equate it to a race war if you were so inclined. A man so foul that people dare not say his name wanted to purify the wizarding world, and cleanse any members of our society whom he and his followers considered as unpure, and he intended to do it through terror and violence. His name was Lord Voldemort, a rather vile character whose small army of thugs and fiends wrought havoc upon our community. It was a terrible war, and one that cost a great many good lives, and unfortunately your parents were among them."

"Oh," Harry managed to say around the lump in his throat, "A-And the war is over?" he asked as a way to fill the emotional void. He'd railed against his parents and cursed them, hated them, and blamed them in patches throughout his life. He'd thought he'd been abandoned by them, and now the truth was more horrifying than he thought, they were dead. No long searches for answers, no weepy reunions, it was over and they were gone. In truth he'd had a ten year long mourning for them, but the cold hard reality of the situation had hammered a few things home.

"Yes," the headmaster said.

Harry, in a bid to focus on something else, fiddled with the letter in his hands and looked at a stain on the floor and wondered about it's origin, "Lord Voldemort is dead?" He asked again a little thickly.

"His evil no longer troubles our world," the headmaster said.

"That's not answering my question," Harry jumped on this blatant piece of obscurity with surprising zeal. "You're just sidestepping the answer."

"Dead is a very convoluted term when discussing Lord Voldemort," the headmaster informed him, "and I can honestly not pin the term dead on the Dark Lord, not truthfully anyway. I can assure you with all confidence that on the 31st of October 1981 his body was torn from this world and his presence was reduced to nothing more than a wisp, a thought, a ghost. I'm afraid I can be no more precise and honest than that."

Harry nodded, he was glad to be told with some shred of honesty. He turned the letter over in his hand and thought about magic, wizards, wars, his parents, and Hogwarts. It was a lot to take in, and in truth he knew it would take him an age to understand and come to terms with everything. He turned his attention back to the letter. He would consider the tender topic of his parents and their fate at some later time, when he was alone and in private, for now he would deal with the more pleasing topic that was Hogwarts. "So if I want to attend this school, how do I go about it?" he segued with the same smoothness you might expect from skateboarding down a flight of stairs.

"You sign the letter and I will return with it to Hogwarts and register your acceptance. Then," the headmaster pulled a large pocket watch from his pocket and flipping it open he inspected the hands at some length. "Yes, there's plenty of time," he said to himself before he snapped it shut and put it back in his pocket, "If all is agreeable on your part, I will escort you to do your shopping."

"I can do my own shopping," Harry said. If there was one thing Bolton and Albright had taught him, apart from controlling his Peculiarities, it was independence.

"I highly doubt you will find the items required on that list, even in such a great conurbation as London, without a knowledgeable guide," the Headmaster's blue eyes sparkled again.

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," Harry admitted as he read the strange list again. "I'm normally sat in the library by now trying to escape from everything, so I've got no pressing engagements. So I'd love to go now if you're offering."

"Very good. If you would care to make any final arrangements and inform any interested parties that you are leaving, I will wait for you at the front gate," the headmaster said as he once again checked the time on his watch. "Yes, we've got plenty of time," he said to himself again. As he rose the big leather chair popped away and returned to its old plastic self, which was disappointing, and after a little bow to Harry stepped out of the room.

Harry's fine clothes had over the months slowly been pilfered and ruined out of petty jealousy, so what clothes he owned now were the rags and tags that were stolen and cast off from his housemates. It was frightening to think that his entire wardrobe consisted of three equally bad outfits, but that was the truth of it. He pulled a jacket on to cover the too-short t-shirt and after a quick trip to bathroom, crept downstairs and without alerting anyone (because no one would care) left to join him.


	6. Purple Smoke

**Disclaimer: No money being made and all that stuff.**

**A/N: **_Italics_** denote words and actions taking place in a memory. **

**Chapter 5 – Purple Smoke**

Albus Dumbledore kicked his curly toed feet up on the windowsill of his office and with a snap of his long elegant fingers he lit his long elegant pipe. Sealing his lips around the long slender stem he inhaled deeply and the bowl flared green as oxygen was drawn through the tobacco. He felt the invading toffee and aniseed smoke fill his lungs to capacity and calm his worried mind and relax his tired conscience. He opened his mouth and let the purple smoke stream out unhurriedly, the long slim tendrils coiled and slithered up into the ceiling where they mingled with the bumper purple cloud that he had been busily cultivating.

It had been six days since he had departed Harry's company, six days since he had met the son of two great friends, six days since he had escorted him to Diagon Alley, and in those six days he had smoked twelve pipes (more than he would smoke in two years) in a bid to sooth and reassure him. They didn't work, well, not for long anyway. His mind was rebelling, his conscience was twisting inside him like a ball of angry snakes, and he felt horrid and betrayed by his own weakness and his own cursed knowledge.

He inhaled another lungful of smoke, let it load itself fat with his many concerns and doubts, and then let it seep from him lazily once again. Who was he to make such judgments, who was he to say who should be and who should not be educated, who was he to judge and punish a man—or a boy—on crimes that were yet to be, but who was he to ignore all the warnings and not act?

Albus pulled the pipe out of his mouth and turned it around to look at it, the long sleek, slender, sinfully beautiful pipe with its ornate design and rich dark wood was a gift from Nicholas, and it was not helping. Who was he? He was Albus Dumbledore. He was a puppet lit up on stage and adored by the audience, but he was the puppet master too. He looming over the stage unseen and unbidden and from the shadows he pulled the strings and worked the show. He was the one who acted, and he was the one who directed; but he was never in the audience, he was never in the sidelines. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he needed to watch for a change.

He put the pipe down very carefully on his desk, and then walking over to an ornate cabinet in the corner he extracted his pensieve. The huge clay bowl, profoundly carved with dozens of ancient sigils and dozens of ancient runes was as much prized by him as his pipe, and he put it down on his desk with equal reverence. Peering into the bowl he could see the liquid smoke that oozed around its bottom like a cloud of silver oil. He gave a little swish of the liquid with his wand tip and looked for any residual memory material floating to the surface. Upon seeing nothing he decided to investigate the shopping trip he had launched with Harry at his side six days ago. He did it in a bid to spy any nefarious doings that he had missed the first time around, or maybe see a little flicker of dark and devious emotions play across the boy's face. Or perhaps he might be enlightened and see something of the contrary.

He thought of a very poignant moment from that day, one that would be full of emotions that he could analyse and inspect. Thinking of a very important one he brought the tip of his wand to his temple and then slowly withdrew it. Stuck to the wand tip came the memory he had been thinking in the form of a long thread of glowing silver. It broke away from his scalp and the thread coiled and curled around his wand tip, like a wet hair clinging to a hairbrush. He swished the wand tip into the bowl clockwise and the thread let go and was dispersed into the solution. Looking in now he could see a shimmering picture of a brick wall rippling in the smoky oil. Albus bent over and pushed his face into the bowl, he felt the chill liquid touch his skin and felt himself being sucked into the memory.

He saw himself, looking very fashionable and very muggle-like in the memory, and beside him was Harry looking even more muggle-like but decidedly less fashionable. The past-him had obviously just opened up the entrance way to Diagon Alley and the invisible Albus rushed around to the front to see the reaction on Harry's face as he was presented with Diagon Alley and all its wonders for the very first time.

_Harry, like a thousands of muggleborns before him, shuffled forward apprehensively and at first peeked inside. Possibly he was worried that intruding upon the place might break the dream and it would all vanish, thus leaving him startling awake in his bed with a cold clammy emptiness inside. Plucking up some courage he stepped onto the cobbles and this in itself elicited a gasp of surprise and elation. With the dream still intact, his head twisted and pivoted and his big green eyes revolved in their sockets in a bid to see everything all at once and his face lit up with joy and astonishment._

Albus watched the genuine emotions with a smile. He had always liked watching muggleborns behold the magic of Diagon Alley for the first time. It was just a shame pure blood students didn't step into London with the same air of amazement, it might save the world a lot of bother. Watching as he was, he recalled Tom Riddle's first trip to Diagon Alley and it was of course an exception to the norm, as with everything about Tom Riddle. He had been angered that the place had been kept a secret from him, and he seemed to accuse it like a man might accuse a cheating wife. By the time he left, Albus knew, he felt like the place owed him something and that the people in it were guilty of conspiring and sneaking in a bid to deny him his place in this world. Harry didn't appear to be like that least.

_Harry, quite delighted that the place seemed real and that he wasn't about to wake up suddenly, got his bearings in record time, and he immediately put them to good use by wandering almost in a daze towards Quality Quidditch Supplies. Albus, in his brown muggle suit, tottered along beside him and let him sate some curiosity by pushing his face up against the glass with the other little boys and ogling the brooms on sale._

Albus, watching this scene from the sidelines, noticed that Harry was indeed focused on the sleek and smooth wooden broom. This was true, Albus knew, for nearly all muggleborn boys. They walked in and that shop seemed to bedazzle them. They didn't know anything about quidditch, they didn't even know brooms could fly, but that shop attracted them like a siren's song. He put it down to the innate ability of boys to sniff out fast moving objects and sporting paraphernalia where ever they went. Albus took note of his counterpart, his blue eyes weren't impressed upon the broom, but the huge advert that dominated the back of the window display. It was Neville Longbottom his famous scar proudly on display, his knuckles white on the broom handle, and himself petrified in fear straddling it. Above him in big glowing capital letters was: NIMBUS 2001 THE BROOM OF HEROS! It appears Augusta Longbottom was still intent on forcing her grandson out of his shell if he liked it or not. If she managed to turn a little profit from it all in the meantime, then that was all the better. Both Albuses spotted this and both sighed in unison at the situation.

"_They've spelt Heroes wrong," Harry said, his soft gentle voice made Albus jolt and his eyes swing down to look at him._

"_They do that a lot," he said with a wry smile. "Shall we go and visit the bank?"_

Albus felt himself being ejected from the memory and he blinked in the weak light of his office. Harry, didn't appear to bear a grudge against the wizarding world, he didn't seem to harbour any simmering hatred either. Or, Albus knew, he could just be a much better actor than was credited him. Gleaning little new information from the memory he swished his wand counter-clockwise in the solution and gathering up the thread of thought he deposited it back in his brain.

He didn't need to witness the events inside Gringotts. Albus had wisely conducted the transaction at the cashier's desk, and had spared Harry the alluring and possibly vexing trip to his substantial vault in the guts of the bank. He didn't need to revisit the brief and eventless episode in Madam Malkin's either. The seamstress had been so busy standing on her measuring stool and peering out of the window at Gilderoy Lockhart's book signing over the road that she barely spared them a word. Indeed, Harry had been measured up with only half an eye spared to watch, and her usually speedy service was double quick. Once completed and the payment made she had eagerly jumped back atop her stool to spy a glimpse of blond quiff. Thinking of another potential moment for intrigue and insight into Harry's character, Albus put the wand to his head again and extracted another silvery thread, he swished it around clockwise and saw the black and purple painted shop front of the Apothecary in the bowl. He took a deep breath and dipped his nose into a second visit to six days ago.

He arrived on the doorstep of the shop, and the Muggle-like Albus reached through him like he was a ghost and pulled the door open. In his memory he was no more spared the toxic smell within than he had been that day, but at least he was used to it. Harry, on the other hand, began to cough and his eyes water as he smelt the cabbage and rotting meat smell. Albus, in his curly toed shoes swept inside the shop and looked around before his memory-counterpart and its charge caught up with him. The stinking shop with its tanks of eels and lampreys and cages of live squawking ingredients was half a pet shop; at the same time the shelves of spices, tins of dried fruit, barrels of herbs, and vats of various milks made it also a half a grocery store.

Behind him, his past self grabbed up a basket and began his rounds of the shop. He was selecting the very best ingredients and imparting some knowledge on the way. Albus wasn't here to watch them, though. He moved further into the shop, to the point where his memory was less clear cut and relied far more on the subconscious. Things here were out of focus and not everything could be relied upon for pin sharp accuracy. In a cage on a shelf stood a raven, its oily black feathers gleamed and one of beady black eye was pressed against the cage bars as it watched his former self and Harry approach intently. It got somewhat agitated as they drew near and began to bounce from one side of the cage to the other.

"_Hello beardy...beardy," the sinfully black raven squawked as Albus passed him by. He hopped up from the dirty floor of the cage and gripped onto the bars with spindly black feet to get a better look._

"_Good afternoon to you," Albus said and gave a respectful nod in the bird's direction._

"_Hello handsome...handsome," the bird said to Harry as he passed on by. It slipped its beak through the black bars and twisted its head in a bid to see him better._

"_Hey," Harry said as he reached over the shelf and stroked the bird's soft feathery head through the bars. The bird nuzzled his hand._

As Harry did this, Albus leant over and tried to see some emotion in Harry's eyes. Did the boy spot something in the bird, did it appeal to him on some base level, was it a kindred spirit? It didn't seem so, he just looked happy to see the bloody thing and was enjoying the moment. Turning back to the raven, Albus watched as it used its black beak to pinch at the primitive lock on its cage door and then headbutt the door open. It stepped out, hopped down into the barrel of mustard seeds, tottered along the lip of a goldfish tank, hopped into the barrel of snail shells, and started to follow the pair down the shop aisle.

"_So what are you looking for when you buy this stuff?" Harry enquired as he watched the headmaster work. "You pick up three types and put two back, why?"_

"_Same reason you might put a melon back in a shop," Albus answered, "it might be too soft or two hard, a little too ripe or not ripe enough. For instance, these Doxy wings," he held up two paper thin wings each the size of his palm. "This one is from an old and infirm doxy, you can tell by the milky opacity; and this one is from a doxy that is too young for its wings to be fully formed, you can tell this because the veins are not evenly spaced and are too thick. We want one much like this," he put both back and picked up a third. "Nice and transparent, evenly spaced and thin veins, perfect. So that's the one we take."_

Harry wasn't missing a word, Albus thought as he watched. His little face was attentive and eager as he listened to the impromptu lesson, and there was no doubt in Albus's mind that he could quote it verbatim. Knowledge was a powerful weapon, and Albus didn't know how he felt arming the boy with it.

"_Take...take," the raven, who was still lingering about and using his beak to peck a hole in a sack of powdered badger bone, cawed._

"_Now this is Barrow seed oil," the headmaster pulled up a thin long vial and held it up to catch the light. "When you swirl it around in the vial you will find it leaves an oily residue on the glass with very clear separation of colours. If you don't see that, and the colours are mudded, then you know it's been diluted and not fit for purpose. See, this one is very clearly defined and so we'll take a bottle of this home."_

"_Home...home," the raven, who was now happily watching the sack of powdered badger bone spill out onto the floor cawed. Happy with its work it waddled off and started to search for something on a low shelf._

"_Headmaster, why is that raven here?" Harry asked softly almost as it to save the black bird's feelings should the answer he get be as expected._

"_He escaped his cage and is following us with great interest," Albus said. He stroked his beard and gave an odd look at the bird hopping around the shelves._

"_I know that much," Harry said, again in a low sparing tone, "what I mean is, why is it in an apothecary and not a pet shop."_

"_Because certain potions require live...stuff," the headmaster said. He couldn't bring himself to say ingredients next to the ingredient itself. The ingredient now had a silver measuring spoon in its beak and was swiping it through the cascading badger bone and flicking the powder across the shop without a care. The white grey dust flew everywhere, it landed in the slug barrel with a hiss, crackled as it came into contact with the copper cauldrons hanging up on the wall, and where it struck in the vats of asp milk it turned green and bubbled. The bird itself seemed to be enjoying itself immensely and was cawing in delight._

"_Seems like a very ignoble end to such an intelligent creature," Harry had muttered and looked at the bird mournfully. _

"_Oi! Get back in your cage," a croaking old voice declared and a click of a walking stick on the stores ancient flagstones announced the arrival of the shop owner, Ethel. She was older than Albus and was bent almost double. Her thin blotchy face looked like a well used handkerchief and it was twisted upwards to allow her yellowing sneer to be appreciated by all. "Albus, huh, what are you doing in me shop?"_

"_I am assisting with a muggle induction, Ethel," Albus said politely and loudly for the woman was more than a little deaf. The woman used the time he spoke to sneak up on the bird quietly and made to snatch it. Her hand brushed a foot, but the raven was too fast. With a flap of his black wings he was up on a high shelf that the woman would not be able to reach. Once secure and safe he flicked his head around and sent the spoon whizzing from his beak and across the shop where it landed with a plop in the eel tank._

"_Come back down here before I roast the feathers right off your back, you malevolent little sod!" Ethel threatened with a shake of her wand in the bird's general direction._

"_Bugger off...off," the raven declared and flew into the rafters of the shop where it began to hop and bounce around in rebellion._

"_Damn that bird!" Ethel harrumphed and pocketed her wand. She turned her attention back to the pair of them and snorted. "I have pre-packed all the ingredients your confounded students need, Albus. I don't need them, especially his kind, and their sticky hands malingering in my shop." This last part was delivered with a stern look at Harry and his apparently sticky hands. "I told Severus, if he writes me out the lists I'll get them all sorted out. We had a deal."_

"_Indeed, but that deal was not made with me, Ethel. Now if you'll excuse me I have a few more purchases to make then Harry and myself will be out of your hair," Albus said politely. He didn't trust anything Ethel boxed up unseen, after all what better way to shift faded, diluted, and old stock.  
_

"_Bah, damn you with the damn bird, then!" She threw her hands up and hobbled away. "Just don't let him be touching anything he ain't meant to be touching!" she sneered a yellow sneer and pointed at Harry with the walking stick. "I ain't got time to go around putting things he don't understand back in order."_

Albus, who was now at leisure to watch the entire scene play out before him watched Harry throughout. The boy didn't seem too pleased being pointed at and accused in such a manner, but then Albus hadn't been too pleased with it either. Harry had scowled and he had once or twice opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped himself and withdrew behind Albus for safety. Was that genuine meekness or an act? Albus thought as he hunched down to watch the boy's face for any flicker of deceit.

_Skirting around the hag without another word, the Headmaster picked and chose the various ingredients and selected the various tools and cauldrons Harry would be needing. All the while he kept a running commentary of what he was looking for, and Harry absorbed it all with a keen look and the occasional nod of his head to show his understanding. He even had a few interesting questions that the headmaster delighted in answering. Behind them Ethel kept them in her sight and followed them like a sneaking spectre with a clicking walking stick. When the much cursed bird finally swept down onto Harry's shoulder he startled but said nothing as he carried on following the headmaster and carried on listening and asking questions._

"_I'd appreciate it if you put that thing back in its cage, boy! It's not proper for you to be mauling the merchandise," Ethel's sneering voice cut across the shop. "Bloody thing's a nuisance."_

_The raven turned its head to Harry; cocking it to one side; and blinked at him. Harry stroked a thumb across the feathered head. "How much for the raven?" Harry asked._

_There wasn't even a second pause before Ethel snapped out a demand of, "five galleons."_

"_Says three on his cage," Harry pointed out the empty cage. The five galleon sign had been scrubbed through with four galleons written under it in red, and that in turn had been scrubbed through and three galleons was written under that._

"_I'm worth ten...ten," the raven declared with a happy bounce across Harry's shoulders._

"_You're worth bugger all!" Ethel snapped. "You've ate your fill of my stock, widdled on my Aconite, scared away my customers, pecked my sister, smashed my window, stole my hair pin...And would you look at the state of this place!" She gestured to the green milk, the sizzling slugs, and the tarnished cauldrons._

"_Then I can take him for free?" Harry said._

"_No! Three galleons. I promised myself that I'd get something for that miserable buzzard if it was the last thing I did!" Ethel shook her gnarled liver-spotted fist at the bird angrily and pulled a face. "You horrid little sod!"_

"_Sod...sod," the aforementioned buzzard cawed._

"_Fine," Harry said with a dismissive shrug and turning away from her evil countenance. His purchase secured he carried on following the headmaster around the shop. When they had finished they paid for the ingredients and for one raven, the woman giving the bird a final angry hiss, before exiting via the crooked little front door._

"_So have you thought of a name?" the headmaster asked once they were free of the hag's glaring eye and the horrid smell._

"_Name?" Harry said as he managed to take the bird onto his forearm. "Oh no, I'm not going to name him. I just wanted him free of that horrid place. He's far too smart to be kept in a cage and—you know," Harry seemed to imply any number of interesting fates with a cocked eyebrow. _

"_Very noble of you," Albus said with a knowing stroke of his beard._

"_Go on, shoo," Harry said and poked the bird to try and dislodge him. It didn't work, the raven rubbed his soft head on Harry's chin in reply. "No, don't nuzzle me; fly away, you're free."_

Both Albuses watched on for ten minutes as Harry did his level best to free himself of the beast, but it wasn't having any of it. He left him on a wall and walked away, the bird followed; he tried to shake him off his forearm, the bird clung on; he tried leave a treat somewhere and trick the bird into distraction, but it was too smart for that.

"_I'm sure he will leave on his own accord," the headmaster lied, he knew too well the bird wasn't going anywhere. The raven, still unnamed, carried on sitting on Harry's shoulder without a care and carried on shouting out crude things to passersby as they walked.  
_

Albus was ejected as the trio walked off down the alleyway and was back in his office again. His eyes looked at his own familiar, a large, elegant phoenix who was sat on his golden perch proud and venerable. A person's familiar was a simple thing to overlook, but it said a lot about a wizard or witch. It spoke of their character, their conduct, and their perception of the world around them. So, the question of that memory was: What sort of boy ends up with a raven for a familiar, especially one so...strange?

Albus drew in a breath between his teeth and shuddered, there might come a time when that bird meets the Weasley Twins, and then all hope shall be lost. He carefully extracted the memory and placed it back in his mind. It was time to venture forth into the truly murky part of that fateful day. He pulled out a longer than normal tendril of silver light and lowered it gingerly into the bowl. He really didn't want this memory damaging, it was too vital to his understanding of Harry Potter. Once deposited in the bowl he swished it around and saw the interior of Ollivander's wand shop. He fortified himself with a deep breath and launched himself into a very pivotal memory.

He arrived in Mr Ollivander's small and dusty shop, and it was in disarray. There was a squid in the corner, its long tentacles were weaving around the shelves and running up the wall; two rows of shelves had been toppled, the wands they held scattered around the floor; there was the burn mark from a small fire scorching the back wall; Mr Ollivander had a black eye; all the shop's many candles had been turned pink and were burning with a cherry smell; and it was raining custard. Albus's past self was sat on one of his big armchairs with his black umbrella protecting him. Perched on his leg was the raven, who was merrily picking at the headmaster's waistcoat button with his beak. Harry Potter and Mr Ollivander stood amid the carnage and looked miserable. Maybe this was because they was being rained on by custard or maybe it was because on the counter beside them was a heap of no fewer than 39 failed wands.

Albus, unaffected by the custard rain in the memory, stepped across the room and positioned himself in a different corner to his past-self. He wanted a real good view of this moment. He wanted to see the emotions run across Harry's face, he wanted to glean any possible insight into the boy here and now as it was a very important moment with potentially dangerous consequences.

_Albus, stopped the sticky yellow rain with a flick of his own wand and with three extra flicks cleaned the place and the people too. He got a thank you from Mr Ollivander for his troubles, but it was a distant one, the plump wandsmith was pinching his chin and frowning at Harry as if he was a totally new and unexamined species. Without a word he disappeared first into the stacks and then there was a thump as he retreated even further into his secluded back office._

"_Could there be something wrong with me?" Harry enquired, "Maybe I'm not powerful enough for a wand?"_

"_If you were not powerful enough for a wand, Mr Potter, you would not have received your acceptance letter," the headmaster put his mind at ease._

"_Now this," Ollivander's voice preceded him, and he returned with a solitary black box that he held at arm's length, as if it was in danger of exploding, "is a wand that I, my father, my grandfather, and his father, and his father, and his father before him have had tucked away in the lockbox in the back room. In all those years, 340 of them to be precise, it has never cast a spell and it has never known a master."_

"_Sounds ominous," Harry said nervously. Albus suddenly leaned forward, his leather chair squeaking as he did so and the raven he had been stroking on his lap cawed angrily at being disturbed._

"_Oh, I've not even started yet," Ollivander said, "this is a wand my great, great—whatever-grandfather made. His name was Oswald Ollivander and he was considered the greatest wandsmith of the renaissance, if not of all time. In his retirement he made five wands, masterpieces of the highest calibre. Four were sold to great wizards across the globe and now reside in various museums around the world. They stand as a testimony to the art and his brilliance. But this wand is different."_

"_Different in a good way or a bad way?" Harry, who had a remarkable talent for telling which way the wind is blowing, asked softly._

"_This was the last wand my ancestor crafted," Ollivander said and pulling the top off the box he revealed a wand of grotesque appearance resting on a bed of crimson silk. Its stem was like a very long mummified finger blackened, crooked, and was rough like charcoal; its handle was bone white and sculpted into the intricate shape of a spinal cord topped with a large skull pommel. "I present to you the Macabre Wand…go on, give it a little shake."_

"_Err," Harry said as he looked down at it in its coffin, "no."_

Albus, watching on unseen in his corner, saw a big difference in the way Harry and Tom were presented with the wand. Sixty years ago Tom had been gleeful of it, he thought it was certainly a wand that a boy like him deserved. When it failed to work for him, and he had truly tried to make it work with several angry stabbing motions, he had thrown it back in the box angrily, spat on it, and proclaimed it a stupid toy. Harry, faced with the same wand, looked at it as if it had just killed his puppy, he was fearful of it, horrified by it, and he certainly didn't want it.

"_Please," the old wandsmith seemed to almost beg, "it would eliminate it from the proceedings."_

"_But what if it works?" Harry asked horrified at the very idea. _

"_Then you would have found your wand, wouldn't you," Mr Ollivander said happily and clapped his hands together in glee at very idea._

"_But it's all creepy and 'orrible," Harry argued. "And why haven't you told me what it's made from? You quoted chapter and verse for all the others, but you've not mentioned anything about this one."_

_Ollivander sighed, as if this was all too much and that he didn't get out of bed this morning to deal with this sort of thing, "the Macabre Wand is 13 inches of lightning struck holly wood, with a phoenix death feather for a core. Nothing more and nothing less, it's just a wand."_

"_Death feather?" Harry said, latching on to the grisly words tucked into the middle of the sentence._

"_When a phoenix chooses final death over a new life they will erupt into flames and in the ashes of their burning they will deposit a solitary black feather instead of the usual chick,' the headmaster supplied solemnly. Harry turned to see he was by all accounts not taking an interest in the proceedings, and was far busier scraping the custard off his umbrella with a spoon and eating it, "this is jolly good."_

Albus watched all this knowing his past-self had been anything but preoccupied. He'd been watching and listening to everything with keen interest and great attention. The presentation of the Macabre Wand to anyone was something not to be ignored or taken lightly. Now the Albus sat before Harry was now watching once again just as focused and just as keen.

"_Any phoenix feather is a powerful artefact," Mr Ollivander continued, "but a phoenix death feather, with all those countless lives never to be, is somewhat legendary in its status. Contemporaries of my ancestor called him mad for using such a thing to power a mere wand and he scoffed at them. In the end he did it despite there protests, and then, for reasons known only to himself, he crafted this gaudy exterior around it. That's all it is, my boy, a gaudy exterior. Now, stop being such a baby and give it a shake."_

_Harry reached out again and made to take the wand only to frown and quickly withdrew his hand, "why don't you pass it to me?" he challenged slyly._

"_Because. Now pick it up and give it a wave, there's a good boy," Mr Ollivander said rather patronisingly._

"_Can't we go for a slightly less perfect wand?" Harry asked. He looked around imploringly at the headmaster in his chair. "That stubby one with the unicorn thingy in it; that was good."_

"_You mean the wand that started a small fire in the recesses of my shop?" Mr Ollivander said with a cocked eyebrow. "Do you really want to walk out with that wand in your pocket, hmm? Do you want to one day try shaving with a fire starting wand like that?"_

"_Do you think I'll one day fancying shaving with a wand like that?" Harry pointed out the Macabre Wand sarcastically._

_Mr Ollivander rolled his eyes, 'if you must know the reason I am reluctant to touch the wand, is because it was the final wand my famous ancestor made, and I really mean very final. He was slumped over his work bench one morning with that—" he pointed to the wand, "clamped into his vice."_

"_Oh great, this is just getting better and better," Harry mumbled despondently. "So not only does it look like it murders people in its spare time, it actually does."_

"_It was a heart attack," the headmaster interjected. "I studied the Macabre Wand and its late maker in the seventies and early eighties. Remarkable piece of craftsmanship from a remarkable craftsman. Unfortunately it remained inert and docile even in my experienced hand. Custard?" He held his spoon out to Harry._

"_Err, no thank you," Harry gulped._

"_More for me," Albus said and popped the spoon in his mouth._

_Harry gingerly reached out and let his fingers brush the wood and then he pulled his hand back sharply, as if it had been burnt, "it's cold," he said. Reaching out again he gingerly withdrew the wand from its crimson bed. The headmaster, slyly looked up from his spoon of custard and zeroed in his attention. He silently hoped that nothing would result from this meeting, but he already had a very bad feeling about it. Seeing the wand brought to bear, Mr Ollivander cupped his most prized possessions and turned his body away from the field of fire. Harry gave it a quick, short shake and from the wand's blackened tip a fountain of gold and silver sparks surged. They splashed down on the floor, the counter, Mr Ollivander, and the squid and where they landed they evaporated with a tingling musical note._

Albus Dumbledore, now sat in the midst of that shower realised with a startling revelation that they were landing on him too, the little sparks sizzled and flashed off his robes and beard. This was-well it should be—impossible, he thought. He tried not to let this distract him from the proceedings, and instead focused on Harry's reaction to his new wand. He looked forlorn, hopeless, and worst of all he was looking at the Headmaster himself, his big green eyes cut across the top in a deep thoughtful frown. No doubt he'd spotted the anomaly in the sparks, no doubt that over active brain of his was pondering it.

"_That's not good, is it?" Harry said when the firework display had finished.._

"_It's very good for me! It means you've found your wand, Mr Potter, and better than that it means I have finally sold it!" Mr Ollivander laughed in joy and shook Harry's hand fiercely. "Congratulations, you are the master of the Macabre Wand."_

"_I don't wanna be the master of it, can't you just give me another or something. One slightly less suited for me but with decidedly fewer skulls?" he pleaded. "Please?"_

"_Mr Potter, I've told you the wand picks the wizard. This particular wand has, after countless candidates, picked you out particularly. Therefore it is your wand. Besides, I'm frankly sick of the thing and am glad to get rid of it. So no, I'm not taking it back."_

"_I'm not glad you're rid of it," Harry muttered and his nose winkled at it._

"_Shame. That'll be 7galleons, please" Mr Ollivander held his hand out, palm up._

Albus Dumbledore was thrown back into his office. He immediately pounced out of his chair and started to pace the room. That episode in the wand shop and the acquisition of that wand gave him the best opportunity to see inside the boy's mind, yet what did he see? A great act or a boy who was given more than he bargained for? What he did know was that a boy who was as good as mirror to Tom Riddle had been handed a most potent weapon. He didn't like that, not one bit. Settling back in his chair he swished the concoction and watched it through again.

Admittedly, Harry didn't seem pleased with the wand, but that was unusual in itself. Shouldn't he think it was cool or wicked or whatever other hip words the kids used these days...did they still use hip? Albus wondered. Undoubtedly there was a great many boys who would think the evil looking wand to be cool and be proud to own it, he himself had thought it rather spiffy when Uther Ollivander had presented it to him a century ago, but that was different.

To move on from the thoughts that harangued him and the ever creeping doubts that gnawed on him, he swapped the memory in the pensieve for a new one. He saw the crowded interior of Flourish and Blotts swirling in the smoke, and he dipped his nose yet again.

The bookshop was packed because Gilderoy Lockhart had chosen that day of all days to do a book signing. The sea of women all crammed together to get a glimpse of the man had been near impassable for his flesh and blood self and tiny charge six days ago. As a mere fragment in the memory however he just walked through the crushing bodies as if he was a ghost. He saw Neville Longbottom on stage, his arms full of Gilderoy Lockhart books, being paraded before the camera. The man had just delivered the news that he would be the new Defence Professor and seeing Neville as a fantastic photo opportunity had dragged him on stage. No doubt Augusta Longbottom was discussing terms and money with Gilderoy's manager in the crowd as it happened. Albus ignored the scene, it was of no consequence at the moment, and set off to wade deeper into the oestrogen sea.

"—_look surprisingly new for someone of your...limited means," a voice like a squeezed zit cut through the throngs. "I might need to have words with the school board regarding Dumbledore's procreation of school funds."_

"_I think you mean promulgation of school funds or perhaps propagation, but certainly not procreation. Procreation is something entirely different," Harry's voice said barely audible above the crowd of shrieking, giggling women who should know better._

Albus arrived on the scene just as his past-counterpart did the same. Only he didn't need to get elbowed in the face by a fat woman to get there this time. There was Harry looking a little angry and a little frustrated as he faced off against the elegant and resplendent Lucius Malfoy. Given the circumstances Albus could forgive him a spike of anger and frustration, he himself often felt it in Lucius's presence. His counterpart stepped smartly into the argument and Albus hunkered down to watch the play of emotions on Harry's face and pick up on any subtle nuances that might pass there.

"_Is there a problem here, Lucius?" Albus asked. The man's pale, sharp face dropped in recognition and he hurriedly dropped the books back in Harry's cauldron._

"_Albus, I didn't think to find you here," Lucius said with a nervous chuckle to break the tension. "Are you a fan of Gilderoy Lockhart as well? Narcissa adores him."_

"_I am more an admirer than a fan," the headmaster said. "I am in fact here today escorting Harry around on his induction tour of Diagon Alley."_

"_Really," Lucius said, his voice full of boredom, "I thought Minerva took on that duty some years ago? She is well I trust?"_

"_Perfectly fine," Albus said simply and without missing a beat added. "Did I not hear you making some complaint a moment ago, a complaint you wished to raise with the school board?"_

"_I was just questioning the wisdom of spending so much of the school's limited funds on a rude, insolate, and ill-dressed…muggleborn," he said the last word with disgust and his blue eyes looked down on Harry._

"_This is Harry Potter, Lucius," Albus informed him, "he was raised in the muggle world after his parents were killed. I'm sure you remember Lily and James Potter?"_

"_Yes, I remember...it was very tragic," Lucius said, through his thin lips were trying their hardest to hide the smile that threatened to spill their borders._

Harry wasn't looking at the adults, he was instead looking at Draco. The blond heir to the Malfoy fortune was hiding behind his father. Harry offered him a tentative little smile but all he got in reply was a sneer. Harry recoiled slightly from this, his smile dropped, and he turned his attention away from his peer and focused in on the adult conversation above him. Albus could only think this a good thing, the last thing he needed was someone like Harry Potter with the Macabre Wand on his hip becoming fast friends with the likes of Draco Malfoy. If there was one saving grace from this fiasco of a induction, it would be that.

"_These books he has purchased with his own money from his own trust fund," the headmaster explained to the other man. "The schools funds have therefore not been—"_

"_Misappropriated," Harry supplied._

"_-in any way," the headmaster finished smoothly. "Are you satisfied with that explanation, or do you still wish to bring the point to order at the next board meeting?"_

"_I confess that I was slightly misinformed as to the nature of the situation, Albus. I apologise," Lucius graciously nodded his head in a bow, "forgive me."_

"_Tosser...tosser," the raven, still in attendance and perched high atop bookshelf, cried out loudly._

"_What did that bird say!" Lucius demanded fiercely. His hand shot to his wand holster and his eyes shot upwards._

"_Wanker," the bird punctuated._

Albus watched as Harry's face broke into a delighted little smile at the bird's behaviour, and Albus wasn't at all surprised to find himself smiling in much the same way. Whatever the bird was, it was firmly in Harry's corner.

"_He's a very good judge of character," Harry muttered to himself._

"_If you'll excuse us, we really must be leaving. Time is pressing on as you are no doubt aware," Albus cut the meeting short. He took Harry by the shoulder and started to pull him away. "Have you paid for your books?"_

"_Yes, then I met that odious snob on the way to the door," Harry said._

"_Very well, then perhaps we should call our trip to a close and I will take you back to Bolton and Albright."_

"_Bertram," Harry said suddenly and rather randomly.  
_

"_Hmm?" The headmaster said._

"_The raven, I'll call him Bertram," Harry said as he was guided through the pressing crowd._

That was it. Albus sat in his office and still didn't know if he had made the right choice. He turned around, lit his pipe, put his feet up, blew out a long stream of purple smoke, and fell into deep contemplation once again. What if he was wrong about Harry Potter, then what?

"Oh really, Albus!" Professor McGonagall snapped as she stormed into his office. She pushed her nose into a handkerchief, coughed, and waved a hand in front of her face. "If you must smoke that…that thing in your office at least have the courtesy of opening a window. What would the children think?"

"Most likely wonder where I hide it. Thankfully the students are not here, and I am at my leisure to enjoy a few guilty comforts," Albus informed her. His mind was still a highway of screaming thoughts and considerations and doubts.

The deputy headmistress pushed open his windows and with a spell blew all his accumulated smoke out of it. She pushed her hands into her hips and faced him, "that may be, but you only smoke that blasted thing when you've been upset. You've not been arguing with Mrs Crabtree over the price of slippers again, have you?"

"That woman has no right to charge me an extra two galleons per pair just because it's the brand I prefer," the headmaster said sharply. The mere mention of that woman opened a sore wound. "It's not that anyway. It is something far more complex and involving than slippers."

"You've been cooped up in here for days, Albus," Professor McGonagall tutted. She emptied Fawkes little water bowl that had grown stagnant and filled it afresh from her wand, and a few treats were emptied into his depleted food dish before he received some much needed attention via a scratch on the head.

"I saw little Harry Potter," the headmaster admitted softly. "Then I did some investigating. Petunia Dursley and her husband left him at Southwalk Care Home on November the 18th with twenty pounds and a note informing them that they didn't want the abominable beast and the best of luck to whoever did."

"They never!" she snapped and stuffed her hands into her hips again to cluck at him, "Well, I did tell you they were little more than savages, Albus, but would you listen?" She started working again and vanished the various half-eaten plates of food and cups of mouldering tea from the little side table. "Have you left this room at all?"

"Once or twice," the headmaster said thoughtfully. He put his pipe back in his mouth and took another thoughtful puff.

"Is Harry okay? I heard those orphanages are terrible places," Professor McGonagall asked as she looked around for anything else to tidy up.

"Harry is okay despite his less than stellar surroundings. He has been well treated and is rather well mannered and charming," the headmaster answered very dry and sterile. He didn't want to put emotional attachment onto the boy, and he certainly didn't want it spreading about to his staff just yet.

"Then what's the problem?" Minerva asked, her voice now sharp and annoyed. Her final act was to light the chandelier and cast some much needed light on the subject. The headmaster blinked under the sudden brightness. "Albus, I know you better than just about anyone. I know you don't just sink into a funk for nothing."

The headmaster drew in a long draw of smoke and let it out slowly before he lied, "just memories. He looks very much like his father, but he has Lily's eyes."

"Fine, I can see you're still in a mood," she said with a click of her tongue. "I'll be back tomorrow to see if you're willing to talk a little more sense. Until then, don't scare the house elves, and don't go wandering around in your...morning wear, it's unsettling."

She left without another word, her work done and her mind somewhat eased. Albus envied her, she didn't have so much resting on her shoulders, not like him. from his pocket he drew out the little vial of Stultifying Solution, the red brown liquid bubbled inside. He had had the soda bottle in his hand, it was right there and it would have been so easy to finish the job. But then he saw those green eyes and his cast iron mettle had started to melt. He was a soppy old man, and his soppiness would be the death of him. He vanished the vial with a tap of his wand and dusted his hands together. "I will see you on September the first, Mr Potter, and I will be watching you with great interest and scrutiny," he said to the boy hundreds of miles away.


	7. You!

**Disclaimer: No money being made and all that stuff.**

**Chapter 6 – You!**

Harry had taken a liking to his new school trunk. It was a large cumbersome thing with shiny brass corner caps and thick leather straps that were held tight by imperious brass buckles. However, this is where the substantial nature ended and its short falls became apparent. A little closer inspection and you would notice how the wooden sides were thin and the lock with its tiny key was more a joke than a means of security. He lived in Bolton and Albright, and you didn't graduate from there without knowing how to tear open a vending machine with your bare hands or kick open a solid fire door without breaking your leg. His trunk, with its paper thin wooden walls and microscopic lock, would last all of about three microseconds within that cruel place, and so it would need to be hidden, and it needed to be hidden somewhere no one would think to enter.

The local library was a concrete atrocity from the sixties that was designed by a man who had zero imagination and zero interest in his work. For a large sum of money he had designed a big grey rectangle, and then, possibly due to a breakdown in communications as to the function of the building, set about giving it only two windows. The lack of natural light meant that the main floor was cast in a perpetual murky yellow light that oozed down from the fluorescent lights above and flickered at a headache inducting frequency. Putting aside the migraines, the fact that the limited selection of books had been nibbled at by mice, and there wasn't a single reading table that didn't wobble the local library did have one redeeming feature: It was empty. It had in quick time become Harry's own little refuge away from the ongoing awfulness that was Bolton and Alright and its surrounding environs. Here, he was free to wander around the overstuffed and badly catalogued shelves adrift and alone far from the horrid civilisation beyond the double doors.

His only partner within the off-white walls was a thoroughly bored woman who had manned the checkout desk for several years with her chin propped up on her hand and her glazed eyes staring fixedly at the big clock on the wall. Her name was Janet, or so her name badge led you to believe, and she was surprisingly short and surprisingly round with a lot of wiry red hair piled atop her head. Being the only patron of her fine establishment for many years she had greeted him at first with a look of suspicion and amazement. She used to follow him around and make enquiries about his business, and when, 'Just looking around' seemed too nefarious an answer she warned him that not only did she have a baton under the counter but she was a black belt in Qigong as well. As the months had passed she'd relaxed a little and now viewed him more of a very quiet pest who invaded her place of work three or four times a week and buzzed around politely. It was rather fortunate that her ongoing paranoia had begun to flee when it did because when Harry needed a place to store his belongings, the local library was the first place that sprung to mind.

When he had first asked she had been cautious and suspicious, no doubt she thought him the mastermind of some grand plot to steal her packed lunch or plunder the history sections of its most treasured annals and the mammoth trunk his rather impractical swag bag. She had relented when he explained his circumstances, with Hogwarts substituted with Eton College of course, and had let him store his belongings in a small box room located in the staff only area. Harry spent every moment he could spare sat on his trunk in the middle of that small damp room. It had bare pipes snaking across the ceiling and rough concrete walls painted a drab white on all sides. Harry thought it was brilliant, it afforded him so much privacy and so much quiet that he had felt rather spoilt by it. His only lament was when Bertram found him and decided to set up home for himself in there. The noisy raven perched himself on the low hanging strip light and enjoyed nothing more than hammering his beak onto a pipe as if he was sending Morse Code. Needless to say it was here, away from prying eyes, that Harry began to study magic and wizarding culture.

Chief among the many contemplations he explored in that room was the aptly named Macabre Wand. It was a truly vile thing to behold and it looked like none of the other many, many, many wands he had tried that fateful day, it didn't even feel like any of those wands. The Macabre Wand felt cold to the touch, like it was drawing your body heat away, and the wooden handle was as smooth as glass...or polished bone. He held it before him, pinching the monstrous blunt tip with his fingers and rotating it slowly before his eyes. The skull's jaw was slightly unhinged and you could see little teeth complete with a gap in the formation, and it's empty sockets had an unerring way of staring at you. Below the skull was the spinal cord, and he knew enough about spines to know that the one depicted was accurately modelled by someone who knew more than most. Cervical, thoracic, and lumber were all there in fine detail, all it lacked to make it complete was the sacrum at the very bottom. He didn't know the reason for the absence, maybe the pointy tailbone would create a weak point for the wand or maybe the wandsmith simply ran out of wood?

The lack of a tailbone on his death stick was the least of his problems with the thing. His main concern should be more along the lines of why the horrid thing had picked him of all people. Couldn't it find a more suitable candidate? Surely some whacko wizard deeply into necromancy and voodoo was lacking a wand somewhere. Another thing that annoyed him about the wand was that it didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He'd put it on the floor once and watched it for three solid hours, it did nothing. What did he expect? Maybe it would twitch like it had a heart beat, or the skull's empty sockets would glow, or the wood would emit coils of smoke, or maybe it would begin to whisper to him. It didn't do anything but sit there like a stick.

Sick of looking at the thing, and sick of getting no answers from it, Harry stood up and thrust the thing into his pocket before pulling open his school trunk and looking for a happy distraction, of which he found plenty. He had enjoyed packing his school trunk, mainly because he had to unwrap all his new belongings from brown paper. It was almost as if the wizarding world considered the stuff ample disguise against muggle intrigue and investigation. To Harry the act of unwrapping everything from the oddly shaped brown cocoons reminded him of Christmas (only slightly more drab) at home in Oxford. He had teased the paper apart to reveal his new black robes, black cloak, and his black shoes with new delight. He then neatly and carefully folded the garments up and laid them to rest in one of the trunks many compartments. Stationary followed, and he gingerly unwrapped feathered quills and simple silver inkwells that all seemed very quaint and charming, but his hand had ached at the sight of them. If he had time and parchment to spare he might have practised using them, but he didn't, so he resigned himself to learning on the job as it were. Potion ingredients, telescope, various other bits and bobs were all unwrapped and revealed, and stored and secured within the trunks wooden walls. Then came putting his books to rest, which took a lot longer than you might expect thanks to Harry's inability to not read the flyleaf or skim through the index and investigate any intriguing chapters.

One thing Harry had done when he was in the sweaty press of bodies in Flourish and Blotts was to buy extra books. It stood to common sense that anyone born and raised in the magical would be ahead of him, and he had every intention of closing that gap as much as possible before he attended his first day. The problem with his plan was the fact that Flourish and Blotts had been heaving with a million-and-two Gilderoy Lockhart fans at the time. They were brutal and terrifying people who bit and scratched each other like feral cats, they fought over his signature (2galleons a time) and when he agreed to a photo (5galleons a time) it was pure pandemonium. Harry, unable to see the shelves through the crowds, had to reach blindly into the sparse gaps between people, grab whatever book he could get, and then quickly pull back out before the tide of bodies shifted and he lost an arm. Book in hand he then had to hastily throw it in his basket before someone, thinking he had a signed copy of Magical Me by Gilderoy Lockhart, snatched it away. In the comfort of his bland little room he had been at his leisure to unpack the books and see what he had bought. He discovered he'd gotten lucky with eight books on various interesting topics including ancient runes, transfiguration, magical history, quidditch, and potions. However, he had gotten slightly less lucky in other areas with a book on dressmaking, a pair of books on suitable wizarding baby names, a Plonker's guide to wizarding peerage, and somehow an old unused diary belonging to one T. M. Riddle. At least the burgundy bound book with its faded gold leaf pages would make a handy notebook, he supposed, so it wasn't a complete loss.

To distract himself from the gruesome wand in his pocket he extracted his surprisingly fat herbology text book, all his other textbooks (minus Gilderoy Lockhart's due to them making him nauseous) had been perused and studied thoroughly with the exception of this final one. With book in hand, he snapped the lid down, sat back down, rested the book on his lap, pinched his chin thoughtfully, and began to read. It was how he spent most of his days now, in quiet seclusion only emerging when the library was shutting and he was forced to scamper away and endure the inner city life of which he was now a part of.

Normally he would leave his trunk locked away inside with all its magical paraphernalia in it safe and secure, but not tonight. Tonight the trunk had to go back because early tomorrow morning he was leaving and it was leaving with him. Pushing what appeared to be a huge treasure chest two miles through three run-down council estates, weaving it between and around four high rise flats, and then across a large park with the sun fast setting was probably not Harry's best idea. But, ranking right up there with it, was the idea of inviting Bertram along for the ride. As he pushed the raven had stood proudly on the prow of HMS TREASURE TROVE and was helpfully announcing their presence to any would-be scumbags with loud declarations of 'what you looking at?' and 'got a problem, mate?' and Harry's personal favourite, 'Come on and try it, ugly!'.

Within sight of the orphanage Bertram took wing and flew off to roost or nest or do whatever it was he did in the safety of a dead husk of a tree that resided some distance away. He, as cunning and smart as he was, knew the likelihood of ending up a feather duster should he bed down within the walls of Bolton and Albright all too well. Pushing his trunk through the front door Harry heaved it and pulled it upstairs on his own and locked it securely in his room before he endured a final dinner. Cold sausages, soggy chunks of potato masquerading as chips, and a mysterious squirt of brown liquid that didn't warrant further investigation. Delicious. At least Bolton and Albright was maintaining its impeccable standards, he thought.

Fed, and possibly poisoned, he went to attend a final piece of business, which was to see Matron and inform her that he was leaving the next morning. She and everyone else in his god-forsaken place thought he was off to Eton, and he was happy to let them continue entertaining that idea. He held his hand up at that white door and prepared to knock, but then thought against it. What was the point? The old biddy might leave her office once a day and she didn't care about anything when she did, no one cared. If he just left tomorrow and in the summer of next year reappeared to find his bedroom gone was it really a great loss? They'd either put him in another room or, with any luck, turn him away at the door. He lowered his hand and slunk away to his bedroom, ignoring the name calls and the threats as he went. His final act before heading to bed was to pack anything he might need from his room into his trunk. This included the rags that he called clothes, a small bag of toiletries, his copy of Lord of the Flies and a few other titles, and some of his own stationary in case the quills disagreed with him. With that done and his trunk secured he pushed his wand under his pillow to stop it escaping and going on a murderous rampage and tried to sleep.

The time warping power of anticipation took hold, the night stretched ever on, shadows cast by the moon silver light inched across the walls, and he laid awake listening to the lightest of clicks as the clock in the hallways sliced the seconds away. Realising that sleep wasn't coming this night, Harry rolled out of bed and padded across the floor to the window, he pushed it open to let some of stagnant air out and let some new air in. He leaned on the sill to let the cool night breeze caress his face as his hand absentmindedly pressed itself against that magical glass pane beside him. He couldn't see much, the view was dominated by that towering brick wall and between him and it a sea of tar black asphalt. He could the hear the city, though. It thrummed and heaved all around him, there was cars, there was people, there was sirens, there was that city hum that he grown to ignore and grown to accept. He wondered how many of the millions around him were doing as he was doing, sitting up in endless anticipating and waiting for the new day to dawn. That led him to wonder how many of those paltry few were waiting to venture forth into Hogwarts for their first time. And couldn't help but wonder how many potential friends he might have within the grasp in this urban jungle.

As the hours steadily wore on and on Harry managed to pepper them with the odd snippet of sleep or a light lethargic doze. Each snooze was concluded sharply with him startling awake, his hand grabbing his wand, and him ready to rush out of the door in case he might be late. These small shocks to his system got so bad that he decided sleep wasn't worth the trouble, and by the time the new September sun finally stroked its long fingers across the sky and painted the horizon a dazzling pink, he was long awake and long ready to go. He'd showered, he'd dressed, he'd checked and double checked his trunk, and then as a final present to all the gits who had kept him awake on countless nights he thumped and clunked his trunk down the stairs with the express purpose of making as much noise as possible. This did little to make him friends, but it cheered him up endlessly.

With himself and his trunk ready for the off, and everyone swearing at him for making so much noise, he went to call a taxi. The pay phone in Bolton and Albright's was a monstrous device, the sort of thing a prison system might install. It was bolted to the wall, the chunky heavy handset was attached to the unit via an armoured cord specifically shortened to stop you using it as a club, and to prevent anyone robbing the main unit it was made of thick steel and had a lock better suited to a bank vault.

It was vandalised, the handset was gone, the guts had been torn out, and the coin basket stolen.

"Hmph," Harry grunted, things like this didn't surprise him anymore. He pocketed his coins, returned to his trunk, and pushed it out of the door and across the asphalt to the front gate which gave a final scream of anguish as he pulled it open. The nearest phone box that A) had a functioning phone B) wasn't currently being used as a tramp's house and C) hadn't previously been used a tramp's toilet was some distance away. Harry fed his coins into the slot and scanned the litany of cards pinned to the back wall of the booth. There was adverts for pizza deliveries, taxi services, local pubs, massage parlours, escorts, and a lot of scrap bits of paper with women's names and numbers scribbled onto them. He quickly dialled a taxi service that he picked at random.

"Hello AB Cab Hire how may I help you?" the woman receptionist said in a voice far too chirpy for seven o'clock.

"Hello," Harry said and he absentmindedly pushed open the glass door of the booth and let Bertram swoop inside and alight on his shoulder. "I was wondering if you could pick me up from North Holland Stree—Hello...hello? Damn," Harry hung up and scanned the board again.

"Hello Pembroke Taxis ," the second woman said as she answered.

"Hello, I was wondering if I could—"

"See your tits...tits," Bertram cut in.

"Yes, very funny, kid," the woman said, not at all amused. "I should warn you that these telephone calls are monitored and—"

Harry quickly slammed the handset down and with wide startled eyes stared at it for a long moment in panic and alarm before turning to the bird, "did you really have to do that?" Bertram's answer was to butt his soft head into Harry's cheek and hold it there. Harry knew this was as close to an apology as he would get, and shaking his head and using his cheek to nuzzle the raven's black head forgave him. "Don't do that again. If I don't get a taxi we'll have to walk and I could be late, okay?"

"Kay...kay," Bertram said as he bounced from one shoulder to the other. Harry fed more precious coins into the machine and dialled another company.

"Diamond Taxis, what can I do for you?" a man said in a gruff and bored voice.

"Hi, I need a taxi to—" Harry reached up and pinched Bertram's beak closed before he could supply a destination, "King's Cross Station."

"Where from?" the man dead panned.

"North Holland Street," Harry said with an expectant wince.

There was a long moment of silence and Harry wondered if he had been hung up on, but finally the man said, "Gotta admit, I don't like sending my cars that way."

"You're not the only one, but please," Harry practically begged, "I have the chance to catch a train out of this rotting cesspit, but if I don't get on it I'll be stuck here forever."

"Hmm," the man said.

"I have the money," Harry said hopefully. He drew the two five pound notes he had managed to scavenge and rubbed them together next to the phone so the man could hear their alluring rustling, "see. Please."

"Nah, sorry," the man said before the phone was hung up on him.

"Ohh, you complete and utter—" Harry glowered down the speaker grill as if he could see the man.

Not wanting to waste anymore time or money calling around, Harry kicked the door of the booth open in frustration and stormed out to his trunk. With a resigned sigh he began to push the blasted thing down the road. Bertram hopped off his shoulder and took his seat at the prow once again, and then he began to caw out his best Ride of Valkyries and bobbed his head as they went.

He'd been to King's Cross station on a couple of occasions, namely with Richard and Liza, so he knew enough about the esteemed station to know that platform nine-and-three-quarters didn't exist, besides decimalisation would have made it platform 9.75 by now. He'd questioned the headmaster about the anomaly when the old man was handing him his large glittery train ticket, his aged old fingers had clung to the paper in a death grip and his face had contorted with strange and uncertain emotions. "If you hang around between platform nine and ten," he had winked a sparkling blue eyes, "you'll get your answer soon enough," then he let go of the ticket with some reluctance.

Harry did as he was bid and within ten minutes of him standing around and looking out of place he saw something that caught his eye. A black boy with dreadlocks spilling down his back was pushing a trolley similarly loaded to Harry's. Beside him his tall and heavyset father, whose head was shaved to shiny slickness, was keeping a watchful eye out. They stopped before one of the large brick pillars and exchanged a hug and some goodbyes before another hug and finally a manly clap on the back from father to son. This wasn't unusual, there was dozens of people doing pretty much the same thing all around them, but the man's eyes were ever watchful, ever scanning, and when they landed on Harry he cocked his head and an eyebrow.

"Cya at Christmas, dad," the boy cried out heartily before pushing his weight against the trolley's handle, and kicking off with his feet he approached the wall at a run. His dad waved and smiled at his son until he hit the wall and vanished through it as if it was nothing but an illusion. The dad pulled his face into something resembling a tortured and sad smile before turned around to Harry. He beckoned him over with a wave of his huge hand and Harry approached cautiously. This was definitely the help he needed, he thought.

"Let me guess, you're off to Hogwarts?" the man said. His voice was tinged with a Caribbean accent that he had no doubt picked up from his parents, but had then been buried under a lifetime of influence from TV shows, London schools, and Cockney living.

"Erm yes sir," Harry admitted.

"Hello baldy...baldy," Bertram cawed from Harry's shoulder.

"Ignore him," Harry suggested as he gave the raven a sharp poke in the breast bone with his finger.

"I'm not bald," the man chuckled at the bird's antics, "I'm sleek and streamlined."

"You're bald...bald," Bertram hopped across Harry's shoulder merrily as he proclaimed this.

"Ain't your parent's here to wish you goodbye, kid?" the man asked. He was doing the sensible thing and ignoring the pest on Harry's shoulder.

"No, they died a long time ago," Harry admitted, now with the firm assurance that he was being truthful. All his life he had skirted the issue or liberally applied weasel words and excuses to the subject, and it was only now that he was being honest did the words pain him.

"I'm sorry to hear that," the man said as he scrubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Now I've been told that your best bet is to take a nice little run at that there wall, screw your eyes up before you hit it, and open them when you hear the world change. You got that."

"I hope so," Harry said, "or I'm gonna look like a right fool when I hit it."

"You won't hit it, trust me," The man reassured him. "Good luck to you kid. If my boy Lee gives you any trouble, give him a kick up the backside from me," he laughed at this and Harry thanked him before doing as his son had done five minutes ago and started to run.

"So long baldy," Bertram cawed in parting. Harry, seeing the orange brick wall racing towards him at alarming speed, screwed his eyes shut and hoped for the best. He ran and he ran and he didn't hit anything, so he drew up sharp and blinked his eyes open. The world had definitely changed. Gone were the sleek, modern locomotives; gone were the weepy parting lovers, the rushing business suited, the lazy day travellers; and gone were the vaulted glass ceilings. Now he stood beside a singular crimson engine that billowed thick grey smoke and the platform bustled with children pushing trunk laden trolleys, owls swooping low, and cats chasing mice. He felt his mouth grow dry with excitement, his heart raced, and with shaky steps he moved towards the smoking monster. It was all happening, it was all real, and it was all so brilliant. Drawing in close he smelt the murky fumes and could see big dollops of grease on the coupling arms and feel the heat from the firebox, and then he stopped as he could feel someone breathing down his neck and it wasn't Bertram.

"Gyah!" Harry cried as he turned to find a girl behind him...well, nearly on top of him. She had mooning blue eyes complete with unnaturally dilated pupils and her long silvery blonde hair ran in plaited pigtails over her shoulders. She was so close to his back that if he hadn't screamed and jumped like a terrified schoolgirl he might have inadvertently kissed the rather stoic schoolgirl on the forehead. She must have been walking inches from his back, her movements perfectly matching his to avoid conflict.

"Hello," she said, still staring at something over his left shoulder, Harry thought it was Bertram until he proved to be on Harry's right shoulder.

"Hi, erm...are you okay?" Harry asked with no small measure of concern. He looked her over for any signs of...danger...distress...madness? She was wearing orange dungarees and a blue cardigan, and she had a large scallop shell, easily as big as his hand, hanging around her neck like a large sand coloured medallion.

"Yes, perfectly," she answered. "May I ask, do you feel the hairs on the back of your neck standing up?"

"At this current moment in time? Yes, yes I do," Harry nodded.

"That would be the Hook footed burrowbugs," she said with a sad consoling smile. Harry reached back and scratched at the nape of his neck, he couldn't feel anything back there. "I would recommend a cold bath and a thorough shampooing with neat cod liver oil. That should clear the infestation right up. I can help you if you like."

"Erm...no, I'll be fine on my own, but thank you," Harry said. The fact that he might have an infestation didn't shock him anymore, not after you had to delouse your bed twice a month. No, he was quite comfortable with parasites now, but he wasn't comfortable with this girl, she didn't blink. All he could think as she stared at the space over his shoulder was: Blink, blink, why aren't you blinking, woman! BLINK!

"Okay," the girl said. Harry tried to blink, almost in a feeble bid to show her how it was done, but she didn't learn, she just stared.

"Right, I'm just gonna get on the train. See if I can find a compartment," Harry pointed to the huge locomotive to his side in case she had missed it. The girl remained silent and unblinking as he turned and started walking again. Hook footed burrowbugs? Were they even real? He'd never heard of them before, but then he'd never heard of Doxies before last month. Maybe they were some strange wizarding parasite, maybe they came off the owls. He scratched the back of his neck, since she'd spoke of them he felt his neck alive with the little critters, he could imagine them burrowing under his skin and feasting on his blood. Harry turned to look over his shoulder, "Holy Jesus!" he cried as he saw the girl behind him still, following in his wake with perfect synchronicity and only a few inch to spare.

"I'm sorry, but you're heading in my direction," she apologised to the space over his shoulder.

"It's not a problem, erm...do you want to walk ahead?" He suggested.

"No, I'm perfectly happy where I am, but thank you," she answered and stood there staring and unblinking.

Harry scratched the itch on the back of his neck again, "okay, that's fine I suppose," he said slowly as he redoubled his efforts to get on the train and hopefully to somewhere private. He practically ran, his trolley fishtailing before him, and all the while he was very aware of the pattering feet falling in step with his own, and very aware of the tickling at the nape of his neck. He skidded to a halt before the train doors and turned to see the girl was still there, still following, still a microsecond away from running into him. And there was still a tickling on the back of his neck. He turned his head sharply and saw Bertram looking very pleased with himself, his wing folding back against his body sharply. "It's you, isn't it? You're the one tickling my neck."

"Yes...yes," Bertram cawed simply and puffed up his chest.

"Eugh, well stop it," Harry said. He set about heaving the gigantic trunk off the trolley and onto the train. The girl had at least given him some room to manoeuvre, she was stood beside the door examining the red paint as if it held the secrets to the universe. "Where's your school trunk?" he enquired, intending to help her aboard with it. The only luggage he saw was a pink rucksack on her back, and even that looked empty.

"Oh, daddy posted my trunk to the school a few weeks ago. He said it would stop anything being accidentally broken or misplaced," she leaned into whisper conspiratorially; Harry leaned back so she couldn't. "The Hogwarts Express is well known to house the notoriously mischievous Long finger brownies. They use it as a convenient aid on their migratory path back north for the winter and are, as I said, notoriously mischievous," she whispered

"Okay, that sounds...well...erm...are any these things real?" He frowned at her. He'd read a book on magical creatures and it had mentioned three distinct families of brownie, but no Long finger ones. "Or are you just messing with me cause I'm muggle-raised or muggleborn or whatever the term is?"

She turned around suddenly and gave him both barrels with her mooning blue eyes (which still weren't blinking), "they're all very real, Mr Potter, just not very well documented," she said with so much gravitas you might think she was discussing the finer points of the Principia Mathematica.

"Right, that sounds really fascinating," Harry nodded in agreement. In truth it it all sounded a little too much like cryptozoology for him. "I'll see you at Hogwarts-err-?"

"Luna Lovegood, everyone calls me Loony," she said with a very nice smile that was all genuine and bursting with feeling.

"It's been nice talking to you Loo—na," he corrected. He'd been called names at school before and it wasn't very nice, so he wouldn't perpetuate them...unless the person really deserved it.

"Bye bye pretty lady...lady," Bertram said with a bob of his black head. Harry stepped onto the train and took up the job of manhandling his trunk down the carriages corridor, which was only made worse by the packs of people using it to lounge around and catch up with friends. Spying an empty compartment as he navigated a gaggle of giggling girls he quickly stepped inside and claimed it as his own. Sliding the door shut and pulling the tiny little curtain across the window he immediately set about changing out of his tattered rags and into the black school robes. He'd spent quite long enough in his rags, and didn't want to spend a second more if he could help it.

He didn't know if he should be worried about the ease in which he settled into what was in essence a long dress. He worried it might be similar to a man, who, upon finding out how comfortable wellington boots were, took a great interest in other rubber-wear. At least it all fit, which was nice; and it hadn't been previously lived in, which was better. He spent a few moments carefully picking bits of thread and fluff off the soft wool to smarten himself up before a knock at his door disturbed him. He immediately recoiled and guiltily covered himself with his arms, as if he was about to be caught in his sister's dress, and then he cursed his own stupidity. Creeping towards the door, and still a little fretful of his silly attire, he stuck his face close to the little window and pulled it aside.

"Nyah!" Harry screamed and hastily snapped the curtains closed. He threw his back against the door and ran a shaking hand over the black stubble on his head, "oh God, she's stalking me," he panted and gulped. The sight of those pale blue eyes staring...at something, something that wasn't him, would haunt him forever more.

"Do you mind if I sit in there with you?" Luna asked with another gentle tap on the door. "Some girls decided they would like to use the last compartment I was sat in, and then very politely asked me to leave it. So I did."

What could Harry say? Yes, as long as you promise to occasionally blink?

No, he couldn't say that, it would be cruel and belittling, besides she couldn't not blink for the whole train ride, could she? Deciding to find out he stepped away from the door and pulled it open for her to enter. She did so in tiny little inching steps that scraped her feet across the floor. With almost mechanical precision she took off her backpack and put it down before slipping out of the chunky cardigan she wore, which she hung up on a hook. Harry retook his seat on the edge of the padded bench nearest the window, and then she sat down beside him...right beside him. You couldn't skim a playing card between them, and she smelt of melons and grass cuttings.

"Thank you," she said quietly and then stared straight ahead, unblinking, unmoving, and uncaring at the wall opposite. Harry tried to push himself into the side wall in a vain bid to give himself some personal space, but the girl seemed to just gravitate towards him until in the end he was squished up against the wall and she was still squished up against him. "Did you know the Hogwarts Express passes over twenty-seven individual ley lines? You might, if you are sensitive to such things, experience a very definite shift in the Telluric Current as we cross them."

"Okay," Harry squeaked, he'd long ago lost the personal space to breathe out fully. "I'll be sure to keep my electroreceptors switched on."

The train gave a hiss as the air brakes were let go and with a chunk the engine began to pull along the track and out of the station. He would have liked to look out of the window, but his current predicament stopped him. Luna leaned forward and picking up her rucksack unzipped it and pulled out a magazine, which she opened and without a word (and still without a blink) began to read. From what Harry could glimpse of the magazine it was certainly strange and he immediately began to doubt the validity of the information contained within. The glossy paper was patterned and the writing was patterned against it, so the whole thing gave you eye strain. On the page Luna was staring at there was a crudely doctored picture of Michelangelo's David, with his most striking feature replaced by a moose head, the sling in his left hand a rake, in his right hand he had some carrots instead of a rock, and someone had painted the whole lot a garish purple.

Someone pulled the door open a little and peered inside, it was an old woman with grey hair and a smile, "anything off the trolley, dears?"

"Yes!" Harry squealed upon seeing a potential saviour. He didn't know what the trolley was or what it did, but he jumped out of his tiny crevice like a greased weasel and escaped. Stretching out his legs and arms in the sudden expanse he walked forward to see what mysterious trolley held. Thankfully it contained sweets and chocolates, and he let his eyes roam over the selection and saw Chocolate Frogs, Cauldron Cakes, Liquorish Wands, Cookie Brooms, and more. "What would you recommend for a boy with a galleon to spare and a wish to sample as much as possible?"

"Muggleborn?" she said with an understanding smile. "Don't worry, dear, I know exactly what to get you. A galleon you say?" Harry held the golden coin out and it was taken from him by thin fingers. The woman snapped open a paper bag and started to heap a wide selection of lollypops, chocolates, and candy inside. She passed it over to him and turned her attention to Luna. "How about you, love? Anything off the trolley?"

"No thank you, I have some treats in my school trunk," Luna said, flopping the magazine down on her lap and staring in the general direction of the conversation.

"But your school trunk is already at school," Harry frowned.

"Yes, I know, but it still has some treats in it," Luna said.

"Okay," Harry said, you really couldn't argue with that logic. He turned back to the old woman and took his paper bag from her, "thank you very much."

"Cheerio dearies, and have a good school year, won't you," she said before pushing the laden trolley down to the next compartment and knocking on it gently.

Harry took his bag to the bench opposite Luna and sat down, he revelled in how much space he had and how far away she was. Now all he had to do was stop her staring at him and get her to blink once in a while and they'd be golden. Before he could dip his hand into his delicious bounty bag, Bertram had swooped in and was burrowing deep with his head.

"Gerrof," Harry said as he pried him out of the bag. The little beast had half a liquorish wand in his beak and took off to the safety of the curtain rail to eat it. Harry let him have it, the malleable soft gunk would hopefully gum up his beak and it might shut him up for once. He sampled a cookie broom, which was nice. It tasted of pineapple and as you ate it filled your ears with a whooshing noise as if you were being hurtled through the air.

"Do you want any?" Harry said, he held the bag out to Luna.

"No, but thank you. You know, you really shouldn't be eating when you're travelling faster than 30 miles per hour. The human digestion system isn't meant to operate at such speeds," Luna said. With her warning delivered she took up her magazine once more. It was called The Quibbler and promised all the truth you could handle for three sickles. With her safely hidden behind her magazine, Harry was free to enjoy a little gluttony in silence and finally watch the English countryside stream by the window. It looked like a patchwork green quilt that undulated all the way to the horizon. All the greenery and all the space and all the quiet reminded him of Oxford and his childhood. He remembered with great fondness being driven around in the back of Richard's Mercedes and gazing out at similar fields and similar stone walls. He had enjoyed identifying birds, flowers, trees, and wildlife as the car had weaved its way down the road.

Someone yanked the door of their carriage open and announced themselves with a hoity, "has anyone seen a boy named Neville? He's lost." Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and it wasn't because of the Hook footed burrowbugs either. That voice.

His head ratcheted around automatically and his eyes landed on a girl with bushy brown hair who was stood in the doorway wearing black Hogwarts school robes. Her own brown eyes scanned the compartment slowly looking for the lost boy until they turned to him. Once their eyes were locked they both narrowed them in identical deep scowls.

"You!" They snapped out in unison.


	8. H J Granger

**Chapter 7 – H. J. Granger  
**

Harry watched as Hermione Jean Granger, the girl he had thought long vanquished, sidled into the train compartment and carefully lowered herself into the bench opposite him. With sharp, barbed remembrance they both recalled and relived the sordid little war that they had fought for three long years across the length and breadth of Dragon School. Their weapons had been exam results; gold stars; certificates of excellence; column inches in the school paper; and the coveted space inside the Welcome to Dragon School display case, where the very best schoolwork was displayed to the families of prospective students and dignitaries. They had butted heads on the debate team, they had played at generals over the chess board, musical solos were weaponised, the sports fields were a battleground, and they had fought tooth and nail for each and every accolade they could deny the other.

In true climatic fashion it all came to a nail-biting conclusion one dreary April day in 1991 when the Beg and Baker Junior Science Fair had been held. The combat zone was the hallowed halls of Trinity College where forty-eight students from twenty-four local schools were invited to crown a single glorious champion. The weapon of choice was science projects, and everyone in Dragon School wanted to represent the school (and those who didn't want to, were forced). For weeks the school had been buzzing with the prospect of the fair and after several little school contests the teaching staff had picked two final representatives, himself and his arch nemesis. Harry and his foster parents had been invited to the event and he was full of pride and joy at the prospect and so were Richard and Liza. He was welcomed in and soon enough he was situated under Dragon School's banner in a quiet corner of a vast ancient hall. His magnificent globe, full of little motors and gears that powered tiny papier-mâché tectonic plates across its surface and caused tiny mountains to rise and fall sat on one table. Beside it on another table was Hermione's lava seeping volcano that could be pulled apart to expose various labels and informative titbits about a volcano's inner workings.

None of the other contestants really mattered to the pair, and Harry couldn't honestly remember another display that had been present that day. He'd spent the entire time glowering at his foe across their staging area and she had done the same with equal fervour. Seeing as the pair seldom spoke to each other on the best of days, unless it was to exchange barbs, that particular day had been spent in silent fury. Their respective parents had soon got bored of standing around and watching them try to hate each other to death, and fluttered away to see what other displays were on offer to amuse them. As the day wore on a panel of judges ranging from university dons to local celebrities had begun to prowl the floor and ask questions of the children. They slowly but surely started to whittle away the losers and discount the half-arsed attempts. Half the field was eliminated by dinner time and an hour later the field was down to ten of the best. The judges, all wearing little golden sashes to denote their importance, did the rounds again after that. They poked and prodded the displays to find weaknesses in manufacture and probed their creators for weakness in understanding. This halved the final ten to five in no time, as children stumbled over questions or displayed a lack of clear understanding. Harry and his enemy didn't, they were keyed up and eager to impress, and judging by the appreciative looks and muttered comments Harry had overheard it seemed that Dragon School was in for first and second place. He was quite happy to let the judges chose the rightful victor, and he was quite confident it would be him, so he saw no need to cheat...unlike H. J. Granger.

She sunk to new and reprehensible levels that day to lay him low with a sneaky shot aimed right below the belt. Taking his eyes off the staging area to enjoy some of the finger foods laid out on a nearby table he heard the unmistakeable tearing noise of papier-mâché behind him. He turned sharply and found her knuckle deep in India. Seeing herself caught in the act she began desperately trying to yank herself free, but his valiant piece of work was holding fast to the guilty digit. Harry, seeing the foul plan for what it was, made to swoop in and confront her. He intended to not only demand answers but to expose her for the cheat that she was. She gave a mighty tug and was free before he could reach her, however, and she ran away to her own display where she hid behind a stubby little woman sniffing the vivid orange lava of the little volcano and wearing a golden judge's sash. Harry drew up quickly, if he had stormed between them complaining about her actions without proof the judge might have thought him tattling, or worse sabotaging his own effort to discredit his opponent. No, he wouldn't do that he wouldn't let her actions ruin him, all he could do was glower at the girl and silently promise payback.

In the end it didn't matter. Harry had been victorious and was very smug about it too. Her ruthless sabotage had come too late and did too little. All the judges had seen his work in action and had already been thoroughly impressed by it. The stubby woman at the end of the day had been the main fence-sitter and her final inspection of Hermione's piece had settled the competition and settled him into first place. That evening he was as happy as could be as he held a little golden cup and a W. H. Smith's voucher worth £100 before the photographers of the local paper. She was left with a tiny, insignificant silver cup, a £50 voucher, and tears in her eyes as she was relegated to some dark corner to be commiserated by her parents. It had been a very proud day for him, and Liza had taken the cut out newspaper clippings with her all the way across the globe, and no doubt she still pulled them out for all and sundry to read at the drop of a hat.

As for Hermione, she had left Dragon School shortly after that incident never to be seen again. Harry had always assumed it was because she was ashamed of her spiteful behaviour, or more like, she was ashamed of losing to him despite of it. It was a shame really, and it really pushed home the old adage of not knowing what you've got till it's gone. Yes, the girl was a bothersome know-it-all who tattled on people; but the war, well, he had quite enjoyed the war. He'd stare in the mirror as he brushed his teeth in the morning and contemplate his enemy's thinking patterns, then afterwards whilst in the shower he'd deduce her possible upcoming plans, and afterwards as he was getting dressed he'd figure out ways of buggering them up. When she tucked her tail between her legs and slunk away in defeat she took all that exhilaration and stimulation with her. All he had left was schoolwork that was too easy and his lingering commitments to various school clubs that he felt were now superfluous. Shame really.

He had made enquiries with some of the teachers when she didn't show up the following year, but they had all shrugged and said she'd been moved to a new school. Pressing further with his questions seemed to just hit a brick wall, and he came to the conclusion her family hadn't informed anyone of their plans and just withdrew her in shame. Speaking of her parents, he did broach the issue with her mother when he went for his dental check up. Dr Emily Granger, who was always so nice and charming that Harry had often thought it impossible that she could have birthed such a monster as her daughter, was very cagey on the subject. All she would say on the matter was Hermione had decided to move to a special boarding school in Scotland and that was it. She wouldn't even give the name of the school and made some excuse about them not accepting personal mail, which was strange. Now however, as he sat watching her with the same intensity one cat might watch another, it all fell into place and just how special the school was seemed apparent.

She hadn't changed much in the last fifteen-months or so, he noticed. She had the same frizzy brown hair, the same oversized teeth, and he had already heard that her voice had lost none of that sharp brittle edge. She was coming into her teens now, though, so she was filling out in certain areas, getting taller and leaner, and her soft features were sharpening. She was still his Hermione though, still his most devious opponent.

"What are you doing here?" She broke the terse silence in her usual snobbish way, her voice laced with accusations.

"Err," Harry looked around the train as if he was surprised by his current surroundings, "sitting and enjoying the view," he smiled cockily. They'd spent three gruelling years at each other's throat with just intermittent barbs being exchanged. Just because they were older and there was a new school on the horizon, he saw no reason to thaw hostilities and change that.

His reward for that candid remark was Hermione's eyes narrowing to slits, her lips pursing in anger, and a harrumph to escape the dark reassesses of her soul. She made a point of deliberately and slowly folding her arms, and then she leaned back in her seat with a creak of leather to show him she wasn't going anywhere. Harry did the same, and that was how they remained for quite some time, both locked in a standoff with neither one trusting the other. It was just like old times, and the only one who didn't seem effected by the escalation of hostilities was Luna. The girl remained silent and unblinking in her seat and the only noise she made was when she turned her copy of the Quibbler upside and made an annoyed tutting noise as if scandalised by it's contents.

It was only the shhhunt clunk of the cabin's sliding door being pulled open that made Harry wrench his eyes away from his opponent, and only then it was after she had done so first. Three red heads, two boys and a girl, rushed in all panicked and slightly frazzled.

"Hermione, they are definitely not on the train," One of the redheaded boy announced loudly as he stormed into the compartment. He stood between him and Hermione and formed a rather effective barricade.

"We have checked every carriage, every compartment, every bathroom, we even checked the head compartment, and the with driver...his name's Dave by the way, and he seems awfully proud of that," the twin brother of the first redhead declared. They were stocky teenage youths wearing black robes that had faded to grey, and whilst one set of robes rode up high to display mismatched socks the other set of robes pooled around on the floor due to being several inches to long.

"Not a sign of them, and no one has seen them either," the first twin went on without missing a beat.

"Then where did they go?" this came from the red headed girl, no doubt the little sister to the twins. She looked to be his age and was tiny, pale, lithe, and wearing robes that were once again not in the best shape. Harry, after months in Bolton and Albright, knew that they were second hand and he could see the very careful patches sewn onto them and saw the neat stitches around the hem. "Hi Luna!" she exclaimed excitedly and rushing over she squeezed herself into the space between Hermione and Luna. Harry saw, hidden under the girl's arm, a bright book with the picture of a brown haired boy on the front and a little padlock and clasp securing it. Harry was immediately reminded of those teeny boy bands who market their face onto every piece of tawdry tat that would accept it. Inevitably they ended up on the front cover of a girlie diary with a plastic padlock to lock it, and this it seemed was one of those diaries.

"Hello Ginny. Have you been keeping tabs on the ley lines?" Luna asked as she lowered her magazine and swivelled her head around.

"Whatever. Listen Luna, something gone terribly wrong," the girl now identified as Ginny said. "Neville isn't on the train. He might be lost or-or stolen or something."

"Nor is your brother," Hermione reminded her with a disbelieving sigh and a shake of her head.

"Have you seen him?" Ginny asked nervously, completely brushing aside Hermione's words.

"Many, many times," Luna said, "I met him in Hogsmeade a few times."

"No, I meant have—forget it," Ginny gave a dismissive flick of her hand and turned her attention to the twins. "Surely he got on the train, right? He was right behind us, he could hardly get lost on the run up to the wall...could he?"

"Neville, probably not," Twin A said.

"Ron, on the other hand," Twin B said, and both twins gave an uncertain shrug and pull of the face to show their confidence in the matter.

Luna spoke, "I find in situations involving missing people we must consider the case of Stanley Grapes. He vanished into thin air from his bedroom one night in New York and six months later only his head was found on the doorstep of a pet shop." Terrified silence reigned supreme for a long moment, and the only sound was a gentle whimper of horror from Ginny. "The muggles said it was murder, but we all know better, don't we," Luna finished and she cast a knowing look around the assembled that seemed to invite them all into the conspiracy.

"Do we?" Twin B whispered nervously. He turned to his twin brother to see if he could shed any light on the subject.

"The lesser redcap hobgoblin. It all makes sense when you stop and think about it logically," she said in a manner that sort of implied that it all did somehow make sense, which it clearly didn't.

"That's not funny, Luna," Ginny bit out with a hiccup in her voice, "You shouldn't joke about Neville being k-killed, it's not nice. Especially after what happened to him and his family. He has powerful enemies you know." She drew the diary out from under her arm and holding it like a mirror stared at it thoughtfully.

"I hardly think Neville and Ron were the victims of a gruesome serial killer," Harry's arch-nemesis threw in with her usual know-it-all tone of voice. When they had both attended Dragon School it was undoubtedly that voice coupled with the way she never could stop condescending to people that drew the bullies to her. After all, he was just as smart and just as uptight as she, but the furthest his bullying went from some horrible words and a few stolen pens. She use to have her pencil case flushed down the toilet and her coat thrown on the roof almost weekly. "If anything they...I don't know...missed the train or something. That's it!" she snapped her fingers. "They were messing around on the platform and watched the train pull away without them. You know what those pair are like."

"I think you might be on to something, Herms," Twin A said. Harry watched as 'a look' was exchanged between the twins in a bid to emphasise the false optimism and silently form an agreement to carry on the facade for the sake of their baby sister's sanity.

"Don't call me Herms!" Hermione snapped out angrily. "It's an awful name. Erk, it sounds like a piece of rubber medical equipment," she shuddered visibly. "And whilst we're on the subject, don't call my Hermy either."

"Do you remember our second year, brother dearest?" Twin B said to Twin A, ignoring Hermione in the process.

"Running after the train, soaking wet, with toilet tissue streaming out behind us," Twin A nodded his understanding.

"Yes, the old Hoggy Express leaves shockingly quick and without adequate warning," Twin B admitted to the assembled.

"Far too fast for Ronny-Two-Dinners to catch it," Twin A added.

"Exactly," Hermione said firmly and turning to the ginger girl smiled. "See, they just missed the train, that's all. I bet they went back through the barrier, spoke to your parents, and then got taken to Hogsmeade post haste. They're no doubt at school right now safe and secure."

"I hope they don't start the feast early," Twin B groaned morosely.

"It'll be all gone by the time we get there if Ron's let loose on it," Twin A finished.

"I highly doubt they will lay out a feast for a thousand people just to feed two second year boys," Hermione said. Harry watched as she blew out a breath that washed up her face and sent a coil of bushy brown hair skyward. It was strange, after years of studying her, of watching her, of planning and plotting against her Harry could read her like a book. She was annoyed with the twins antics, and this was undoubtedly exasperated by the fact that she was also far less than sure about the solution that had been concocted between them to explain their friends' disappearance.

"So, now that we've solved the case of the missing Boy-Who-Lived shall we tackle the next big mystery?" Twin A said and he clapped his hands together gleefully.

"What mystery?" Ginny asked, her red eyebrows knotting in frustration. It was apparent that she wasn't happy with the topic of conversation shifting away from Neville and his disappearance.

"Who on earth is the Boy-Who-Loves-Hermione," Twin B said. Both Twins turned as one to face Harry and smirked at him a very sinister little smirk.

"He/She is not my boyfriend/girlfriend," Harry and Hermione said in perfect unison. Hearing her steal his words made him glower and scowl at her and she, being of the same opinion, did the same in return.

"Hello little feller," Twin A said cheerfully as he leaned down, hands resting on his thighs, and threw a huge smile at Harry.

"What's your name, then?" Twin B did the same only he added a cheeky ruffle of Harry's short stubble hair for good measure.

"Harry Potter, and he's still not my boyfriend," Hermione answered for him.

"Ah, I see the problem," Twin B said before both boys dropped themselves down either side of Harry, threw their arms over his shoulders, and stretched their legs out before them.

Twin A sucked in air through his teeth, like a mechanic who had just invented a rather large and expensive problem for a middle aged woman's car. "It appears, my little friend, that you have gotten yourself quite a conunerunderum."

"Your lady love is not reciprocating your feelings," Twin B sympathised.

"Happens to the best of us," Twin A added.

"Except us of course," Twin B threw in seriously.

"And that is where you're in luck, because you, my little friend, have just met the solution to all that ails you," Twin A said.

"My name is Fred Weasley, this is my brother George, we are Fred and George Weasley," Fred Weasley finished smoothly. Both of them stuck hands out to be shook and Harry automatically made to shake them.

"Ark...ark!" Bertram's cawing acted as a warning siren. All eyes turned to look at the raven who was perched on the curtain rail. He shook his head before cawing and bouncing up and down the rail in excitement. Harry gingerly drew his hands back, if Bertram was issuing a warning it had to be bad news.

"Whose bird is that?" Hermione demanded as she stared up at Bertram with a scowl knitting her brow. She knew the answer, she was just trying to be difficult as usual.

"He's mine," Harry said firmly, and then cursed his own foolishness. He'd just admitted to owning Bertram in front of witnesses. If there was anything going to get him into trouble at school, it would be Bertram.

"You're not supposed to have a raven," Hermione said and turned back to stare at him with no hidden amount of glee. "Didn't you read your letter? Only owls, cats, and toads are allowed as pets. I'm sure you'll get into frightful trouble."

"I did read it," Harry said as he kept his eyes on Bertram, "and at the time of my induction tour I raised the issue with the headmaster himself. He informed me that the rules on pets was rather sketchy and very hard to enforce, and so students had owned rats, mice, spiders, an otter, a penguin, and," he turned his head and looked at Hermione pointedly, "on occasion they even admit dogs."

"Oh how I have missed that legendary wit of yours," Hermione grabbed her sides and heaved the usual fake laugh, "please excuse me whilst my sides split with mirth. Hah-hah-hah."

"I'm getting the feeling that you pair know each other," Ginny said suddenly suspicious of them.

"We had the unfortunate privilege of attending the same muggle school," Hermione admitted. "I have to admit I hoped to never share Hogwarts with anyone from my old school, and that sentiment went doubly for him of all people."

"Aww, young love," Fred and George let out soft sappy sighs.

"IT IS NOT LOVE! SO SHUT UP ABOUT IT!" Hermione actually roared like a rather hairy lioness across the compartment at them. Her face went an angry red and her eyes bugged out slightly. Harry knew that meant she was a tad annoyed. She'd looked like that when his technical drawing of a Stationary Steam Engine replaced her painting of the Eiffel Tower in the Welcome to Dragon School display case. She'd moped and moaned about it for weeks and had the gall to actually complain to the Headmistress in a bid to get it removed.

"I think we touched a nerve," Fred whispered over Harry's head to his brother on his other side.

"Oh well, Little Harrykins. Plenty more fish in the sea, hey," George said with a reassuring pat on the arm to comfort him.

"We'll introduce you to Katie Bell. An older woman. Just what every growing boy needs," Fred added with a salacious wink.

"Looks a little like Hermione, only she's not half so scary," George finished and gave him a condescending pat on the head, as if he was an accomplished dog. This simple act caused Bertram to caw and swoop down. He land smartly on Harry's head, his spindly feet were sharp and dug into his scalp. "What are you looking at?" George said, only it wasn't to Harry this time.

"You, big nose...nose," Bertram said from above him.

"Hell's bells, it talks!" Fred cried out in alarm. Harry felt Bertram peck or do so something like it on his head before a small floppy thing came flying from above him and landed with a flap on the floor of the compartment. Everyone looked down at what appeared to be a humorous rubber interpretation of bird droppings.

"What, it was just a joke!" George defended himself to the bird.

Bertram, not impressed, spread his midnight wings and gliding across the carriage he landed on Hermione's shoulder. "I'm watching you...you," he warned as his beady black eyes flicked from one twin to the other accusingly. They both stiffened and stared back in horror, their jaws unhinged. Bertram, his threat delivered and thoroughly received, rubbed his head against Hermione's cheek affectionately.

"Hello cutie," Hermione said happily and scratched at his black breast feathers. Harry felt a roiling sea of jealousy and anger froth up inside him. Bertram was his bloody raven, he wasn't meant to be mauled by the enemy. Once he'd received some attention, Bertram ducked under the fall of Hermione's bushy hair and emerged on her other shoulder where he perched quite contently.

"Neville will be fine, won't he," Ginny asked. She drew the padlocked book before her as if it was a shield and wrapped her arms around it. Harry got his first good look at the boy on the front for the first time. He'd seen that face when he'd visited Diagon Alley, if it wasn't splashed across an advert trying to sell him a broomstick it was doing amicable service being the rather uncomfortable looking front of Holdalot Luggage Company. You couldn't move ten paces without finding some form of it staring out of an advertisement. He'd seen the boy in the flesh at a distance too. He was being photographed with Gilderoy Lockhart, but the situation with the crowd had rendered him unable to appreciate the experience to its fullest. Harry wondered what he was famous for, he didn't look like a boy-band singer or a heartthrob actor that was to be sure. He got his answer when Ginny whispered sulkily, "I mean, he is Neville Longbottom, and if he can defeat You-Know-Who then he can defeat anyone, right, and he'll be safe?"

"He defeated who?" Harry said on reflex. He'd heard the term you-know-who and he-who-must-not-be-named whispered a couple of times in Diagon Alley. He had a very good idea of who-you-were-supposed-to-know was, but he couldn't quite reconcile that boy and his death. Besides, didn't the headmaster say he died in'81 or something of that nature. That boy looks barely older than he did.

"Neville, that strapping young chap there," George pointed to the picture on the front of the diary, "killed a very powerful wizard when he was a wee baby," he explained.

"You mean Voldemort," Harry said to ensure they were on the same page.

"Eeuk!" Fred and George winced and as one both twins withdrew their arms from Harry's shoulder and leapt away as if he had just become a plague carrier.

"Don't say that name, but yes, _you-know-who_ we mean, okay," Fred went on, his voice a hiss, and the hyphens seemed to drop into place with a clang. "I take it you've heard the tale, then?"

"No, just heard a little about the wizard and the war he orchestrated," Harry explained, not going into details. "I was never informed of the nature of his demise."

"Well," Ginny said and leaning forward she clasped her diary to her chest and drew in a large breath. This, it seemed, was a story she enjoyed telling. "On Halloween night 1981 You-Know-Who sneaked into the Longbottom house. After murdering his poor parents You-Know-Who crept upstairs to kill Neville as lay asleep in his crib. He raised his wand and cast a foul murderous spell, but it bounced off Neville as if he was a mirror and it killed You-Know-Who stone dead. Neville was left with this scar, look," Ginny proudly held up the glossy diary for him to inspect a thin red lightning bolt scar on the boy's forehead. Harry also noted that the words Neville's Longbottom's Official Diary 1991-1992 was written in gold across the top. So that was the boy he had to thank for killing the bastard who killed his parents, Harry thought as he took in the boy's pale face. He never seemed happy in any of his photos, more put out and on the verge of wetting himself. "So you can see why we're concerned about him going missing," Ginny finished sadly.

"He'll be fine, Gin-gin," Fred reassured her.

"Trust us," George finished.

"Trust you pair?" Ginny snorted and went back to cuddling her book. She raked her fingers through her red hair to push a lock of the stuff out of her face. "So Harry, what house do you think you'll be in?" She said to no doubt change the subject.

"Erm...I don't know," Harry said as he once again found himself adrift in a conversation where his islands of understanding had floated away over the horizon. He was well aware of what school houses were, but how they related to Hogwarts was a complete mystery. "What are my choices?"

"There's four houses. There's Hufflepuff for the loyal."

"You say loyal, we say duffers," Fred put in quickly.

"Then there's Ravenclaw for the intelligent," Ginny carried on.

"You say intelligent, we say snooty," George put in quickly.

"Then there's Slytherin for the gits," Ginny carried on.

"You say gits, we say gits," Fred put in quickly.

"Then there's Gryffindor for the best," Ginny said with a giggle.

This got a rousing cheer from the twins who threw their arms up in victory and offered no quick jibe. Harry took this to mean that they were Gryffindors, and Ginny was undoubtedly aiming for the same. He couldn't help turning his eyes towards Hermione and wondering silently what house she was in.

"Gryffindor," she answered without his prompting when she saw him looking at her.

So it's Ravenclaw for me, Harry thought immediately. "My mother was in Ravenclaw, and I hold some hope to be the same," Luna said as she lowered her magazine and looked over Harry's shoulder. Harry foresaw a horrid future where his every waking moment was staring into those big blue orbs that never blinked and somehow never looked back. He swallowed the lump in this throat as the full horror played out before him. Okay, so it looked like his choices were Hufflepuff or Slytherin.

"Luna is it?" Hermione questioned the girl in that usual patronising way. "You really must get changed into your school robes. We'll be arriving any minute."

Luna turned her head slowly to the side to see her and Hermione, getting a taste of the girl's unnatural stare, startled backwards down the bench. "My school robes are in my school trunk," Luna explained

"I'm sure Fred and George will be more than happy to help you...get...it—where is your school trunk?" Hermione stuttered to a stop as she looked up into the little stowage areas above the benches for a second trunk and failed to find it.

"At school," Luna answered simply and as she did the momentum of the train changed and the brakes gave a little screech as they were applied.

"Too late to do anything about it now," Ginny said as she looked out of the window as the whizzing scenery began to slow down.

"First years, leave your trunks on the train and they'll be sent up to your new dorm rooms for you," a voice that seemed to be all snot and nose said as its owner moved up the corridor outside the door. "I repeat. First years, leave your trunks on the train and they'll be sent up to your new dorm rooms for you."

"I say dear brother. That sounds like Percy the Perfect Prefect," Fred declared in what he no doubt considered a posh voice.

"Indubitably, and I do declare he is being a right ol' snooty sod to the local populace as usual," George put in with equal aristocratic articulation. They pounced to their feet as one and seemed to devise a plan with a glance. In two large strides they reached the door and waiting behind it shared a little giggle.

"First years, leave your—" the voice declaring the announcement grew louder until it was right outside the door.

The twins threw the door open, "PERCY!" they bellowed together. Another red headed boy, who had been steaming down the corridor with his chest puffed out and his nose sniffing the ceiling, leapt back with a squeal and slammed into the far wall. He slid down to the floor, his hand clutching his racing heart.

"Nice to see your little badge is still all shiny and correct," George declared as he stepped outside and helped the boy up.

"And nice to see you all shiny and correct too," Fred said. The pair looped their arms over the boy's shoulder in much the same way they had Harry earlier and guided him away down the corridor. "Is that new pomade in your hair? Smells awfully jolly."

"Or has Penelope given you something to make your coat nice and shiny," George said and concluded this statement with a playful growl and saucy meow.

"You pair are so very disgusting," the boy drawled, "and I wish you wouldn't talk about Penelope in such a vulgar manner."

"Wow, he reminds me of someone," Harry said as the trio of bickering voices faded into the crowd. He turned to face Hermione, who, already knowing what he was about to say, was getting her disgruntled scowl in early. "Oh Miss Jones, Carlton and Jake are being intolerably rude in the playground and they've been using swear words," Harry said in a falsetto.

"Shut up," Hermione snapped. The four in the cabin stood up as the train finally clunked to a full stop and outside eager students started to move in droves to disembark. Harry repressed the urge to dust his robes down and pick off any stray bits of fluff when he saw Hermione had beat him to doing it. He'd be damned if he copied her. Bertram for his part glided across from Hermione and landed on Harry's shoulder. "Ginny, I hope to see you Gryffindor; Luna, best of luck getting into Ravenclaw; and you," she pointed at Harry, "I hope you fall in the lake and get eaten by the giant squid. Goodbye." She flicked her hair over her shoulder haughtily and stepping outside was swept way in the tide of students all vying to leave the train.

Harry, to finally escape Luna's eyes, made a bold escape by stepping into the shove with no concern for his own safety. He was jostled and pushed on all sides and at least one elbow found his kidney with surgical precision, and like a rather uncoordinated fish caught in a rushing current he was propelled downstream and in a roundabout way arrived at his destination. He popped through the doors of the train and stumbled out onto a platform where the sudden cold weather caught him by surprise.

"Firs' years t' me!" A deep booming voice called out. Harry didn't need to look long before he found the owner. A true giant of a man wearing what appeared to be a hairy pelt for a coat was stood, towering over everything he surveyed (including the train), and waving a lantern in his hand. He had a black thicket for a beard and shaggy black hair that fell to his shoulders in an untidy mess. "Firs' years, come t' me!" He yelled again and waved his lantern, as if he didn't get enough attention already.

His efforts had already earned him quite a crop of tiny people, they gathered around his knees and more and more were coming with every passing moment. Harry, deciding he fell neatly into the gigantic man's criteria, added his own persons to the gathering.

"Do we 'ave eve'yone?" the man asked and lifting a massive shovel like hand began to count heads whilst his black thicket beard chomped away to the movement of his silently counting lips. "Good, yer all 'ere," he declared and clapping his hands together like a crash of thunder he rubbed them together very proud of his achievement. "Now folla me, please."

Harry and his new school friends did as they were bid, and due to the man's ginourmous strides they had to run to keep up as he loped along at a lazy pace. Thankfully it wasn't a long run, but it was sufficiently distant to make most of his peers wheeze and sweat, one actually doubled over with a stitch. Their destination was a large lake with an eerie calm surface that acted as a mirror to darkening sky up above. Along the muddy bank lay a host of little white row boats that clunked and knocked together in the water.

"No mor' than four t' a boat. Come on no', let's 'urry things up," he bellowed and stepping his huge size 40 boot into one boat sat down and proceeded to fill it to capacity and then some.

Harry felt Bertram's feet clench and watched as he hunkered down and shifted his weight. Harry tried his best to stop him, but he was too late. The black feathered monster spread his wings and was a shadow in the sky in a snap. He glided across to the captain of this endeavour and landed on his head.

"Onward...onwards!" Bertram demanded and poked his beak out in the general direction the boat was set to head.

"Why 'ello dere. Ain't you 'andsome," the big man said, and his beetle black eyes sparked with joy. Using a finger as big a baguette he gave the bird a gentle stroke. "Four t' a boat!" he declared, "and y' pair at t' back stop yer messin' aroun'," he demanded of two boys who were trying to wrestle each other into the water. Being told to stop messing around by a 11 foot tall man with a shaggy black beard did wonders for their behaviour. They both neatly leapt into a nearby boat where two guffawing boys were already sat and the four immediately started to mess around in the boat.

Harry stepped into a boat that was still unoccupied and settled down on the elevated plank that served as a seat. Before long a boy with floppy blond curly hair sat beside him and then to make matters worse Luna's blue eyes got in followed by Ginny and her book. Harry, suddenly pinned to the back of the boat by the unblinking blue stare, had no choice but to stay as the boat rocked and shuddered into magical motion.

"Wow, that's Neville Longbottom, isn't it!" The boy at Harry's side declared excitedly and a pale hand was raised so he could point a thin finger at the diary Ginny was still clasping in her arms as if it held the secret to eternal life.

"Yeah, it's an official product I bought direct from his fan club," Ginny said proudly and turning the book around she stared at the gurning visage on the front.

"Does he really attend Hogwarts? I was speaking to some boy called Martin...or was it Marty...anyway, he said he was a second year Gryffindor. I sure hope I'm in Gryffindor so I can meet him. Colin Creevey by the way, pleasure to meet you all," the boy called Colin said in one long expulsion. Harry thought it amazing that such a small boy could hold so many words.

"He certainly is," Ginny said.

"If he returns with his body," Luna put in nonchalantly.

Ginny shot the blonde an angry look before gritting her teeth and turning back to Colin, "Neville's best friend is my brother Ron, Ronald Weasley."

"He's got to return to school with more than his severed head as well," Luna said. Ginny swivelled her own unsevered around to give the girl another frosty glower, but Luna remained fixated on the space above Harry's left shoulder. She gave a little sigh, "I do hope Ronald does return with both his head and his body, I find both rather fetching."

"Eugh," Ginny winkled her nose at the thought.

"IT'S THE SQUID!" one of the rowdy boys cried loudly from their own boat. They all rushed to one side of the vessel and nearly upset the boat. They proceeded to splash and swipe at the water's smooth surface with their hands. They cheered encouragingly as one of them took the initiative and actually sat on the boat's edge and kicked their feet into the water. Harry leaned over the side of the boat and saw a liquid black shadow swirl just under the water's calm surface. As he watched a smooth black hump broke the surface and then some distance away a tentacle as thick as a man's leg did the same, it flicked up and with amazing accuracy it knocked the splashing boy back into the boat with an oomph. "IT KICKED ME IN THE FACE!" The boy screamed excitedly. He stood up in the boat and threw his arms up victoriously and turned around so spectators could get a full appreciation of his glory.

"IT'S HOGWARTS, IT'S HOGWARTS EVERYONE! HOGWARTS!" One of his loud friends declared with a point and a bounce in his seat.

The four boys in the boat dove across to the other side of the vessel and set it rocking violently in a bid to get themselves a few inches closer to the castle that hove into view on the far side of the lake. It was quite a sight to behold, a magnificent and grand castle with a dozen tall towers and hundreds of little sparkling lights. Colin summed up the sight best with a gawping, "bloody hell," that fell from his lips and seemed to land in his lap in a puddle of incredulity.

"Onward...onward," Bertram cawed loudly from the head of the giant in the boat who led the fleet. Then he started to caw Ride of the Valkyries again as he bobbed his head. Onward they went until the boats clunked and ran to a stop on the shore nearest the castle. Bertram, seeing his time as an admiral was at end, took wing once more and his black sleek form disappeared into the encroaching darkness. This was not good, Harry thought. If there was one thing he wanted to keep an eye on right about now it was Bertram, and the fact he had just vanished into the darkness pleased Harry not.

"Gather 'round, gather 'round," the huge man demanded as he planted his mighty boots in the mud and called them in with a sweeping motion of his great hands. All the knee high students gathered around and the man did another quick head count before nodding his head. Spinning on his toes he set off towards the castle with a cry of, "folla me!" thrown loudly over his shoulder. Everyone took off after him at a dead run and the castle as a consequence grew larger and more imposing on the horizon with each passing second. In record time they were all screeching to a stop before a colossal pair of studded double doors with a great knocker and massive brass handle. The giant, who hadn't just completed a 200 meter dash, calmly lifted the knocker and gave three resounding whacks.


	9. The Grumbling Garment

**Disclaimer: Please see previous chapters**

**Chapter 8 – The Grumbling Garment**

The great iron studded door gave a loud echoing clunk from inside as a considerable bolt was thrown, and then with a rather disappointing hush the substantial door swung inwards slowly on its hinges. In the revealed golden glow a very severe woman appeared. She wore a tartan green dress and her sharp face were drawn sharper still thanks to her hair being pulled back tight into black bun.

"Firs' years, ma'am. All presen' and correct," their lofty guide informed the woman with pride beaming from every pore on his big face.

The woman looked up at him with a uncertain air and then did her own little head count, as if slightly unsure of his. "Thank you Hagrid," she declared when she was satisfied. Her voice was a crisp burring Scottish accent that rolled off her tongue like a little purr being emitted from a very ferocious tiger. Her sapphire blue eyes snapping up to meet his as if to silently dismiss him, and he cocked a little bow and departed. His long strides saw him swallowed up in the evening gloom in seconds. "I suppose you had better come in."

She pulled the door wide open and the warm fluttering candlelight fell upon the assembled, and she stepped aside to let them shuffle on in. It started very orderly with everyone stepping smartly inside and giving the perfunctory gasp of amazement, but then the rowdy crowd from the boat had to squeeze themselves inside and things took a plunge for the worse.

"Last one inside is a total poo," one of the four noisy boys declared. He pushed the boy who had gotten kicked by the squid aside and laughed as he dived through the door. The boy who was pushed righted himself and laughing like a grief stricken donkey rushed ahead to pull the third boy back and jump over the threshold himself. The forth boy from the boat tripped the third and rushed in through the gap and claimed victory. This left nothing more than the three inside to chant, "Randolph's a poo, Randolph's a poo!"

"Will you boys kindly contain yourselves!" the strict looking woman demanded after watching the scene unfold. She looked upon it all in the same manner a man lost at sea might watch a shark's fin cutting through the water at great speed and great determination.

"Sorry Miss, it's Randolph's fault. He's a tota—"

"Finish that sentence, young man, and I will have Hagrid escort you back to the Hogwarts Express. There upon I will personally pay the driver's overtime to ensure he gets you home before sunrise. Do you understand me?" The woman cut him off a sharp look and a sharper tone.

"Y'miss," the boy muttered as he and his chums recoiled at the idea.

Harry, who had listened to all this from outside finally got his chance to step through the door and was confronted by a magnificent foyer with well worn flagstone floors and high walls that seemed to be made of nothing but pictures and portraits. Harry wasn't shocked by the portraits moving, he'd received that shock when he opened his Transfiguration Textbook and watched a picture of a matchbox turn into a snuffbox, but the manner in which they moved was shocking. Painted trees swayed in the breeze, little water-coloured brooks babbled, an old man stepped out of his frame to whisper to an old woman in her frame, a little boy stroked his cat happily, a dog chased a sheep, a creepy looking old man was trying to coax them over, and in one particular big frame six or seven painted subjects had gathered behind a green card table and were in heated debate as they stared and pointed at them.

"I bet that the fat one's in Hufflepuff," one of the assembled said with a finger pointed down at the tiny horde of pre-teens. The fat one, a boy who looked like a beach ball with stumpy legs tried to hide behind several smaller compatriots with limited success.

"He's a dirty no good snake if ever I saw one," a blustery looking old woman wheezed. The fat boy gave a little gurgle of fear as he heard this. "The long streak of whatsit in the middle, now that is a Hufflepuff if ever I seens one," she pointed someone out and gave an authoritative nod of the head to stamp her seal of approval.

There was a startling boom that resounded up the high hallway as the woman who had led them inside slammed the door shut. The instant she turned around to confront the pictures and paintings they quieted and rushed back to their original frames silently. Her feet clicked on the flagstones as she moved around the group and presented herself at the head, where she stood before another set of double doors that were not nearly as impressive as the first. "Good evening everyone. My name is Professor McGonagall, and welcome to Hogwarts. In a moment I will lead you through those doors where you will be sorted into your respective houses. Your house will be a second family to you. You will work together, learn together, play together and you will earn house points for good behaviour and conversely you will lose house points for—Why aren't you in school uniform?" she demanded sharply.

"My robes are in my school trunk," Luna's voice float through the air. Harry craned his neck and saw her stood in her blue cardigan and orange dungarees amid a sea of black school robes. Best of all her face was in profile now, and those eyes were beaming away in another direction entirely. Just as he thought this she snapped her head around with military precision and her blue eyes picked him out of the crowd without a moment's hesitation, "aren't they Harry?"

"Eyhak!" Harry squeaked as he came under her sudden blue scrutiny.

"Then why didn't you get them out of your school trunk and change into them whilst you were on the-," Professor McGonagall drew her tirade short and one eye narrowed suspiciously. "Luna Lovegood I presume?"

"Yes Professor McGonagall," Luna nodded.

"I see," she gave a resigned sigh. "We received your trunk in the post last week."

"Oh I am glad," Luna said, her head tipped back and her eyes stared at the picture of a man and his horse several feet off the ground. He didn't seem to pleased by this, nor did his horse.

"Fine, I suppose we have no choice but to overlook it on this occasion. In future I would appreciate it if you arrived at school in proper attire," the professor warned her.

"Yes Professor McGonagall," Luna addressed the painting.

"As I was saying your house will be your family and you earn and lose house points for good and bad behaviour. In a moment you will be ushered inside and sorted into the house that best suits your nature. Now, if you will excuse me I will go and see if they're ready to receive you," she pushed open the door behind her a crack and turned back to cast one final glance over the assembled. "I would recommend you use the time to try and make yourself look a little more presentable."

"Why thank you...you," a voice cawed respectfully from the floor.

A dread chill fear ran up Harry's spine as he realised that Bertram had sneaked inside, and looking down he felt his heart leap into his throat as he watched Bertram waddling through the crack and into the room beyond. Professor McGonagall, who hadn't caught on to what was happening quick enough, looked a might confused as she saw the black tail feathers disappearing from view around the side of the door. "Who...what...come back here, you!" She cried out and pushing the door open she rushed through, and slammed it shut behind her. "What is that thing doing in here?" Her voice cut through the door like it was paper. "Somebody stop it!"

"You're still a total poo, Randolph," one of the boys from the noisy boat declared when they were alone. This proclamation lead to Randolph denying it wholeheartedly and grabbing the other boy in a headlock and that descended into a four boy pileup on the floor.

"How are we sorted?" Colin Creevey wondered aloud. "Do we get to pick or something. I'd like to get into Gryffindor if at all poss."

"I don't suppose you've got a drop of decent wizarding blood in your entire family, have you?" a lean black boy with startlingly pale hazel eyes set narrow in his face said. He set his chin high and gave a lofty tsk of derision.

"Nah," Colin said excitedly. "My dad's a milkman, and he could hardly believe his luck when Professor McGonagall told us the good news. A real wizard in the family, you could have knocked us all down with a feather. Well, the next day he'd told half his round and all the lads down the pub about it and Professor McGonagall had to make a return trip and tell him to stop doing it. Statute of secrecy and all that, apparently he was breaking it. So what is it, then, how's it done? Like an exam or something?" Colin blurted out, once again showing a propensity for holding words much greater than his diminutive size would indicate.

"No, nothing like that," Ginny said. "Tradition states that none of us first years are to know. It's meant to be a surprise, you see. Of course, if you know my brothers, then you know that they like nothing more than flying in the face of tradition. They've told me all about it; I've known for years."

"Are you going to tell us or what?" Someone else asked from the far side of the crowd.

In the brief silence of Ginny's indecision the cry of Professor McGonagall demanded very loudly and very sternly, "come down here this instant!" was heard. Harry got a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach at what was transpiring behind the door. Bloody Bertram, he thought.

"Let's just say it involves a fish tank and four blood sucking fish. They don't hurt or anything apparently, just take a little drop blood of blood out of your finger," Ginny explained. She looked very proud that she had an entire audience hanging off her every word. "I'm hoping to get into Gryffindor."

"Fish? But I don't like fish" Colin paled, which was saying something considering he resembled a milk bottle already.

"You can't just shoot a poor defenceless bird!" a voice beyond the doors declared shrilly. This was followed by something like a table being scraped across the floor and someone squealing like a stuck pig.

"Just watch me!" this was from Professor McGonagall. Harry tried to shrug it off, what sort of a problem could a single tiny raven cause, anyway? Most of his mischief came when he opened that beak of his.

"My family's Hufflepuff through and through. Have been for near two-hundred years," a tall willowy girl with lank blonde hair said to fill the sudden void. "I hope I'm in with the badgers too. My dad would be so disappointed if I wasn't."

"COME BACK WITH MY RUFF, YOU LITTLE SWINE!" a muffled, pained, and strangely warbling voice demanded. This voice didn't come from the assembled, nor did it come from beyond the door. It came from their right, where nothing but a solid wall was to be found.

As the new first years turned to ponder this development a giggling translucent form swept through the wall and skidded to a halt before them. He was short, podgy and his huge gaping smile shown a mouth full of white teeth and a gap between the front two. In his hand he held a shimmering grey ruff that was just as transparent as he, and his feet hovered inches off the floor. "Mornin' firsties," he said to the tiny horde with a doff of a see-through cap. With a cackling giggle he floated off at great haste through the crowd, making them scream; and then straight through far wall of the foyer, which didn't seem to mind so much.

A split second later a pair of similarly see through persons rushed through the wall in pursuit and stuttered to an awkward stop before them. The one in the lead didn't look all too healthy, his head was nearly cut off and as he ran it bounced around, clattering against his chest and shoulder with just a few sinewy strands holding it in place. He picked his head up by the hair and held it the right way up so he could see the group properly. "Which way did that impertinent little monster go?" He demanded in a rushed and agitated tone, his hand turning the head around left and right in a bid to spy the monster.

Everyone pointed at the wall where the last ghost had flown and in the stunned silence someone beyond the doors yelled, "he's swooping low, get him quick!" This pronouncement was followed by a clang and a clatter.

"Thank you, and hurrah hurrah for Gryffindor! Hope to see you in my house and all that good stuff!" The ghost declared in a rush as he let his head go and took flight once more. "Peeves, come back with my ruff or I'll tell on you to the Baron!" He shouted before disappearing through the wall in pursuit, his head once more bouncing and rocking on its sinewy attachment.

"Sorry, sorry, can't stop to chat," the second ghost said. He had drawn to a stop and was bent over to catch his...breath? He was a rotund man in a friar's habit and came complete with a tonsure of silvery blue hair on his head.

"Hello Fat Friar," the willowy girl who inspired for a life of badgery declared happily and offered him a little wave and a bright smile. "It's me Prudence Little. I'm mother was Emberta Little."

"Pleasure to meet you, and less of the fat if you would. I've been on a diet," the ghost panted as he stood up straight and clutched a hand to his chest to contain his heart. "Sorry, but I really must dash. Peeves is on the rampage, he's been a blighted nuisance of late. So...err..hope to see you in my house, and good luck to you all. Hufflepuff for the cup and toodlypip!" he chirped out cheerfully before cantering off in pursuit through the wall with a frantic cry of, "Sir Nicholas, please don't excite yourself!"

"I always knew ghosts were real," Colin said with a big smile. "Wait till I tell Dennis, he's gonna be so jealous."

Two more ghosts arrived at a more sedate and dignified pace, they glided across the floor and cast them all a single, simple look. One was a barrel chested man with curly grey hair and wearing expensive, extravagant robes that were splattered in something shiny, shimmering and silver. Sweeping along before him was a slender pale grey woman. They didn't make enquiries, didn't speak, just glided on through the wall very regal and aloof.

"Oh god, the Bloody Baron just looked at me," someone trembled at the back. "Eugh, what if that means I'm destined for Slytherin?" He cried.

"And what's wrong with Slytherin?" the boy who had questioned Colin about his wizarding blood asked.

"You mean you don't know?" the other boy said. "You surprise me Farrows, I thought your family bled Slytherin Green."

"I know all about the proud and noble house of Slytherin," Farrows said and he drew his lip back to unsheathe his teeth in a sneer. "I just don't understand what's wrong with it."

"The fact it's full of no good sneaky snakes does spring to mind," the boy said with mock thought.

"But let's not forget that a fair few noble Lords have passed through Slytherin's doors," Ginny added. "The main problem is they always get that insane urge to bung the word Dark before their title, don't they. Dark Lord You-know-who and all that."

The boy gave a derisive snort of contempt. "As if Slytherin is going to want you anyway, Mordaunt, you're a mongrel at best; and Weasley, you're not even fit to scrub our common room floor, let alone wear the tie."

"JUST LEAVE IT!" this was very definitely Professor McGonagall and she sounded more than a little annoyed. "Just leave it be. We're running late as it is! I'll just fetch the first years and with any luck get some answers!" A moment later the door was wrenched open with so much force that it was nearly pulled off its hinges. Professor McGonagall strode out and Harry knew things had not gone well. Her tight black bun was skew-whiff and a lock of black hair trailed down past her nose, she had a small raven shaped foot print on her forehead, a smudge of dust across her nose, and two black feathers sticking out of her collar. She gave a loud snort like a bull bracing to charge and a tiny black feather shot from her nose and cascaded to earth gently. "Whose...raven...is...that?" She said, sounding each word very slowly, deliberately, and with great articulation.

Out of the tail of his eye Harry saw a few faces turn towards him, and even Ginny turned around to stare at him accusingly. "Don't look at me," Harry protested. "He just follows me around and demands feedings occasionally. I don't own him, so much as suffer his presence."

"It is a calamity on wings, Mr Potter!" she bellowed sharply. "I wouldn't trust it if it was dead and stuffed on my mantelpiece!

"Yes, I know; believe me, I know," Harry said with a nod and bit his lip in contrition. Professor McGonagall snapped her wand up before her and Harry recoiled fearfully, expecting some cruel and painful punishment to befall him. She gave it a swish and the black tendril of hair was combed back into the bun that realigned itself, and the various marks on her face and feathers in her collar vanished.

"You will learn to control it. Do you understand me," she said, and it wasn't a question.

"I'll endeavour not to let you down," Harry said. He doubted his luck in the matter, but he would try.

"Very well. Everyone follow me into the great hall and please be on your best behaviour" she said. Her eyes flicked over to the four boys who were always so noisy and then flicked back to Harry in warning. She didn't speak another word, instead she turned on her heel and pushed open the doors and stepped on through them in the full knowledge that every single one of them would follow without question.

Beyond the doors was a grand and magnificent hall with four huge tables running down its length full of happily clapping students and laid out ready with golden plates. At the far end to which they were heading was a head table running across the hall's breadth, this held the teaching staff and in its middle the headmaster, who sat in a large golden throne. Harry got to see just how much damage one small raven could do as he took in all the sights. There was a tapestry twisted up around itself against one wall, a banner hanging perilously lopsided above one of the tables, several candles had fallen from their holding position in the air and splattered to earth, and the headmaster was using his beard to mop up something liquid from the head table. His eyes scanned for the little monster, but he couldn't see him anywhere.

"Oh Merlin, it's Gilderoy Lockhart," one of the girls positively swooned as they walked.

"Wow, he's really here," another whispered, and then both girls shared a giggle. Harry turned his head to the mauve and yellow clad wizard sat at the head table. He looked scandalised as he used a silk handkerchief to scrub candle wax off his perfectly pressed outfit and was bemoaning the stain to anyone who would listen. Well done Bertram, Harry thought.

"What's wrong with the ceiling?" Colin asked, "it looks like someone nicked it."

Harry's immediate thought was: Bloody Bertram! But turning his eyes upwards he saw that the inventive little feathered pest hadn't stolen the ceiling, it just appeared to look like the sky outside. Dark leaden clouds moved on the breeze and the first ways of silvery moonlight flittered through. Looking closely you could follow the shadows to trace the vaulted ceiling and pick out few ornate rafters and grotesques.

"It's not missing," Ginny assured him. "It's just charmed to look like the sky. My brothers always try to trick it into snowing in July, but they've never quite managed it."

They were stopped before the head table and Professor McGonagall slipped away and carried a small three legged stool before them and atop it she put an old worn hat. It was pointed, grey, and had seen better centuries by the looks of the thing. Everyone quietened down and the hall seemed to hold its collective breath reverentially. Harry and company did the same so as not to appear out of place and look silly. Then as they watched a rip in the brim started to move like a mouth and after a moment it began to sing.

_/You might think me an old cloth cap/  
/You might think—/_

"ARK WHAT IS THAT NOISE...NOISE!" Bertram, bloody Bertram, Harry thought furiously. The birds squawking voice seemed to catch in the arched ceiling and was throw down amplified a hundred times over. It sounded like a petulant, echoing thunderstorm was falling down around them. Everyone turned their eyes up, and Harry saw the blasted pest peering over the edge of some rather decorative stone work directly above them. "STOP THE NOISE!" he cawed and started to kick his feet and flick his beak and flap his wings to make centuries' worth of dust and filth rain down on them. This naturally caused everyone in the crowd to squeal and panic and dance around all in a flutter, as if they'd never been dusty before.

_/I would get in a—/_ The hat tried valiantly to carry on his song despite the ruckus, but he was failing miserable. His voice was soon washed out and he was singing against the tide as it were.

"ARK, STOP IT...IT!" Bertram bellowed again, his voice cutting across the hat's like a sabre.

_/There is only one sorting hat in all the world!/ _the hat started to yell over the racket, his voice coming through in indignant squawks and croaks.

"NO MORE SINGING!" Bertram declared and then hammered his beak down on something three times with a resounding boom, boom, boom.

_/I'm the best of the bunch—/ _the hat screaming tone declared not so much in a song but in a fury.

Professor McGonagall was glaring daggers at him and Harry, who had so far rocketed through phases of embarrassment, humiliation, mortification, indignation, and was now happily floating high on the happy clouds of oh-well-it-can't-get-any-worse-so-why-care, gave an apologetic shrug and said, "don't look at me, I can't do anything about him."

"NO MORE SINGING! NO MORE SINGING!" Bertram started to chant and hammer his beak against the stone.

"NO MORE SINGING!" Fred and George joined in and both slapped their hands on the table thrice.

"NO MORE SINGING?" Bertram carried on.

"NO MORE SINGING!" The three finally got their act together and started to chant in unison. "NO MORE SINGING!"

In true mob mentality it took mere seconds for the chant to roll around the hall being picked up by a few dozen students and the headmaster of all people. The old man looked to be having a whale of a time and was slamming his hands down and stomping his feet with gusto.

"FINE! FINE!" the hat shouted indignantly over the horrendous din. It seemed to sag in defeat, its point flopping over as if someone was letting the air out of it. "See if I care. It's your loss, not mine!" The hall fell into shamed silence as it heard the hat's voice creak under the emotion. "I'll just sit here a-and you can blooming well go bored for all I care. I don't know why I-I bother. I dedicate my life to thinking up nice an-and cheerful songs, try and make them interesting, try to brighten up the feast a little, and what do I get for my troubles? This! It's downright unfair and mean, and you-you should all be a-ashamed of yourselves!" There was more guilty silence as the hat seemed to sulk and maybe, if it was possible, cry a little.

"Yay," Bertram's voice said through the morose silence.

"Damn that bird!" Professor McGonagall snarled and looking up she shook her fist in the general direction.

"Perhaps we should forgo the song," the headmaster suggested.

"Don't think I didn't hear you chanting along with these hoodlums," the hat mumbled sulkily. "That was some bad showing, old sport."

Professor McGonagall gave a defeated sigh and gave Harry another sideways glance. "Yes, I suppose we should get on with the sorting before that beastly bird manages to ruin something else? I dread to think what he will do during the feast."

"You might as well start because I'm not singing again, not ever," the hat grouched. If it could have folded its arms in stubborn resolution it would have, but seeing how it couldn't, it just sunk into a soft shapeless puddle on the stool.

"I wonder when the fish are brought out," Ginny whispered expectantly as Professor McGonagall composed herself and tried her best to physically perk the hat up so it didn't look like a pool of cat sick.

Seeing that hat for a lost cause she left it be and pulled a long scroll out of her pocket and unfurled it, "When I call your name you are to take a seat on the stool, put the hat upon your head, and the sorting hat will sort you into the house that best suits you."

"What? No fish?" Ginny hissed, "those two are so dead!"

"Seeing as someone," Professor McGonagall cast her eyes skyward and then downwards at Harry, "has ruined the explanatory song I shall endeavour to explain the houses in as short a time as possible. And woe be anyone who interrupts me."

Bertram blew a short raspberry from up high, Professor McGonagall gulped down her anger and her face twitched.

"Gryffindor is the house for the brave, Ravenclaw for the quick of wit, Hufflepuff for the loyal, and Slytherin for the cunning," Professor McGonagall said so fast the words seemed to meld into one. She sharply looked up again at the damn bird in warning.

"Bertram for King," Bertram declared, his voice carrying softly on the breeze.

"Oh you—" the woman let the rest go unsaid as she gritted her teeth. "Once the hat has sorted you, you are then to go and join your new house table. Please step forward Randolph Ackery."

"YES!" the boy, who was a total poo, said excitedly. He rushed over and threw himself down in the stool with so much excitement it nearly toppled over backwards. The hat, which was still doing its best to passively resist the proceedings was lowered onto his head where it passed by his ears and drew level with his chin. The grey material sagged pathetically, the brim flopped to his shoulders, the point fell down and landed with a flop against the boy's chest. It looked like he was wearing an uncooperative sack on his head.

"H'puff," the hat mumbled sulkily after a few seconds of silent deliberations, the cut stitching of its mouth barely moving as it did so.

"Did it say Hufflepuff?" someone asked, "yeah, I think so. Could have been bugger off I suppose," someone answered uncertainly.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" Professor McGonagall yelled for everyone to hear. A table under a black and yellow banner (which was perilously lopsided) featuring a badger erupted into applause and cheers. That must be the Hufflepuffs, Harry thought.

Once relieved of the hat the boy jumped to his feet and threw his arms up in cheer, "you guys have got to get into Hufflepuff now! We'll have a right laugh!" he yelled to his three friends before he ran off to join the cheering table. The three friends nodded in agreement and started a hushed conversation that soon dissolved into a little horseplay and a lot of laughter.

Professor McGonagall brought the boneless sack of a hat to her lips and whispered something to it that ended with the words 'boiling hot mangle', before turning her attention to the list once more. "Helen Babybarrows," she read the next name off the list.

A girl with strawberry blonde curls stepped forward nervously and seated herself demurely on the stool. The hat flopped down atop her head, and once again the hall held its collective breath in anticipation. "G'ffindor...I suppose," the hat grumbled a little louder this time but with the same sulky attitude

"I'm warning you," Professor McGonagall hissed at the garment, "GRYFFINDOR!" she yelled before yanking the hat off the girl's head and shaking it slightly. Helen Babybarrows rushed away to join the cheering stamping table under the red and gold banner proudly displaying a roaring lion. Harry knew that was Gryffindor because Hermione was sat at the end of it surrounded by empty seats and glaring at him like he had just fed her puppy through a tree chipper. It was almost like she was considered a leper, which was understandable all things considered.

Tabitha Banks was called forth next. She was a sweet looking girl of mixed race heritage who seemed to be hiding under a huge explosion of dark brown curls that erupted from her head like a very strange volcano. The hat couldn't have been lowered onto her head if it had been cooperative, in its current state the best Professor McGonagall could do was lay it atop the hair and hope for the best. "Slytherin," the hat grouched a little more enthusastic and it was removed once more. The girl rushed off to join the cheering table under a green and silver banner emblazoned with a snake and sat down on the end. Harry noticed the ferret looking boy he had met hiding behind his daddy's robes in Diagon Alley. Draco, Harry recalled the name snapped out by the father in passing. He was flanked by two huge apes who seemed to be mentally engaged with the task of breathing. He took a furtive glance down the table and understood implicitly why that house had such a bad reputation. It was like looking through a book of Britain's Most Wanted, with a fine blend of white collar crooks mingled in with hardened thugs that had names like Barry 'Both-Barrels' MacGraw.

Colin Creevey was called next. The boy rushed to the stool, got sorted into Gryffindor in quick order, rushed off to the Gryffindor table, rushed back to the stool to return the hat, rushed off to the Gryffindor table once again, stilled, and asked, "where's Neville Longbottom?"

Harry let his mind and his eyes wander after this. There was only so many times you could watch someone run up, try on a hat, have a name called, watch said someone run away in amazement before you felt your brain rebelling. His eyes skimmed the head table to look at the teaching staff. Half the chairs were empty and the teachers present there seemed as bored as Harry. They politely applauding the children who ran away to join their new houses and occasionally whispered something to one another. The headmaster, he noticed, was sending him little glances, his blue eyes swishing to him, back to the child on the stool, and back again. When the house name was said he turned his attention back to the child on the stool, smiled brightly, clapped politely, and then gave Harry another furtive look.

"Luna Lovegood," Professor McGonagall called out. The mere mention of the name made Harry startle violently and he accidentally tread on someone's toes as he did so. The name had sneaked up on him so cunningly, just like its owner, and he could hardly believe they were already in the L's. Four more letters, he thought. Just four more letters.

Luna dragged her feet and had her head tilted slightly back to give her a better view of empty space as she walked. At least she wasn't looking at him, he thought. She plopped herself down on the stool facing the head table instead of turning around to face the students, and Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes and made to drop the hat on her silvery blonde head. Luna held her hand up to halt her and reaching up she took the thing gently in her hands. Flipping it upside down, and flicking the neck open she peered inside with great interest and scrutiny.

"W-What are you doing?" the hat demanded as it was manhandled, and the floppy, flappy funk it was in departed with commendable speed. It stiffened to a sharp point and the floppy brim became as firm an inflexible as a dinner plate. "Madam! Put me down!" The hat shrieked.

"Miss Lovegood?" Professor McGonagall questioned.

"I'm just ensuring that the hat's not infested with Red skirted moths or lousy with their eggs. Old garments are an absolute breeding ground for them, as I'm sure you're aware," she explained.

"Bu-brah-what!" The hat stuttered and spluttered, "the nerve of the thing! Old garment! Madam, I am cleaned twice a year with detergents, don't you know. Red skirted moths of all things...I've never been so violated in all my life. First that horrid song business, now this! I have every mind to resign."

"You can't resign, so shut up and do your job," Professor McGonagall demanded. She snatched the now starched to perfection hat out of Luna's hands and thrusting it onto her head with considerable force.

"I'm now working under protest," the hat said shrilly before harrumphing in dismay. After a moment of deliberation it called out, "Ravenclaw," in a crisp tone followed by something muttered and mumbled.

The Ravenclaw table let out a groan and a few gave a cry of, "oh Merlin, not Loony!" Despite this, Luna walked away with a happy little bounce in her step and her head nodding from side to side. Once seated at the table, she cocked her head back and settled down happily to stare at the wall.

It came to Harry attention, as Jasper Mordaunt-Smith was sorted into Gryffindor and quickly there after Matsuko Nagako was sorted into Slytherin, that the four letters that remained between Luna and himself were vanishing quickly. In no time at all it seemed Lenny Olivier, a dark skinned boy with a head as smooth as Harry's was sorted into Ravenclaw; and then Shanti Patel, an Indian girl with a very long plait that snaked down to her buttocks, was joining him.

"Harry Potter," Professor McGonagall read after that. He suddenly felt very small and very insignificant. All eyes were now on him, and he could feel their stares crawling over his skin like ants. All his peers, all his future teachers, Hermione Granger, and even Bertram were now solely fixated on him, and it was rather nerve-wracking. He shuffled across the floor and watched the headmaster lean forward in his throne and moisten his lips with a lick of his pink tongue. Harry plonked himself down on the warm stool that had been worn smooth by a thousand bottoms and watched the leering crowd thankfully vanish from sight as the hat was lowered onto his head and over his face.

'Oh, so I finally have the culprit, I see,' a voice said not so much in his ear but in his brain. It was a raggedy voice full of misery and brimming with bitterness. Like an old man who was being wheeled off to a nursing home against his wishes, but to the great joy of his long suffering relatives.

'I don't know, do you?' Harry thought somewhat perplexed. It must be the hat talking to him, surely. If so, what was he going on about, 'what culprit?'

'That dratted bird belongs to you, does it not? I can see it all in your mind, so there's no point in lying,' the voice demanded tartly.

'Well, as much as a flea belongs to a dog, I suppose,' Harry admitted with a growing level of suspicion. He didn't like the tone the hat was using, it was brittle and full of bile. A dangerous combination in the voice of someone in power.

'That bird of yours has ruined everything, you know that?' the voice hissed across his brain like nails across a blackboard.

'He often does,' Harry admitted morosely. 'Believe me you only have to deal with him for one evening, I have to put up with him day in and day out.'

'All I have to look forward to in life is singing my song, my wonderful song in my beautiful voice. I enjoy the fact that I have an appreciative audience, and I like to think in my own small way I make Hogwarts a more magical and exciting experience. Then you show up and ruin it all.'

'Correction, Bertram showed up and ruined it all,' Harry defended himself. He felt like this was less a sorting and more of a show trial. What the hat was trying to get out of him he didn't know, but he didn't like it.

'And who brought him, pray?' the hat requested.

'He mainly brought himself, I think,' Harry answered, 'I didn't pack him in my trunk or anything.'

'Hmm, very amusing,' the hat said at length. 'Let's see what's lurking in this noodle of yours, shall we?' Harry felt thin fingers of cold seep into his brain. 'Quite an impressive mind you've got, you're very astute and very keen to study. You'd do well in Ravenclaw, and whilst I'd undoubtedly get some grim satisfaction out of watching you being hounded by that little sweetie with the big blue eyes, I don't think it's enough of a punishment for you.'

'What? Hold on a second, are you sorting me with the express intent of gaining vengeance?' Harry thought, horrified at the idea. He didn't like the sound of that one bit, and he highly doubted it was the standard operating procedure. No one else had looked horrified or tormented when they emerged from under the brim, did they.

'Gryffindor's a good match,' the hat went on as if he hadn't heard Harry, 'and as an added bonus you have a skeleton lurking in that closet too. I say, you certainly have a way with the fairer sex, don't you?' it chuckled. 'I remember Hermione Granger, very polite and intriguing conversationalist. I must confess it's only my fond regard for her that is keeping you out of her hair. Although it would be rather fun to watch you both murder each other. But no, I want you to suffer for a long, long time.'

'We're running out of options, aren't we,' Harry said glumly. He didn't know where this facade was going but it wasn't going to be good for him. 'Don't I get any say in the matter; can't I even plead my case?'

'No,' the hat snipped. 'The idea of putting you in Hufflepuff is not to my liking at all, you'd be happy there. So that leave me one choice, and my, by the most appealing of coincidence it proves to the best one I could hope for,' the hat gave a little snigger.

'What?' Harry thought nervously. He was starting to really dislike the hat, and he really didn't like it when it sounded happy.

'Your new house. I'm sure you will grow to positively loathe SLYTHERIN!' the hat declared, the last word more ringing in Harry's ears than in his brain.

The hat was chuckling again as it was pulled off his head and Harry blinked in the returning light. Before him Professor McGonagall was tapping her foot with impatience and to his left the sound of gentle polite clapping could be heard. Harry stood up on shaky legs and looked around for some sympathy. He found nothing but silent stares from the student body and when he turned around to see the professors behind him he got more of the same. Even the headmaster didn't seem interested, he was just sat there with his jaw unhinged, his hands held before him frozen mid clap, and a frosted look on his eyes.

"Mr Potter," Professor McGonagall said tartly and gestured towards the table under the Green and Silver banner. "Please go take your seat."

"Bloody Bertram," Harry muttered.


	10. Hello?

**Disclaimer: Not mine, no money, and all that stuff.**

**Chapter 9 – Hello?  
**

What remained of the sorting ceremony passed in a daze for Harry. He perched himself at the Slytherin table and tried to keep his physical presence to something slightly smaller than that of an atom. He drew his legs in close, kept his elbows to his side, and had his neck wound in tight. Names he only half listened to were called out by Professor McGonagall and their placement went half unnoticed by Harry; unless that insidious hat declared them fit for Slytherin, and in which case he added his half hearted applaud to the multitude. As the sorting wore on Slytherin house expanded its rogue's gallery somewhat. When he joined the table there had been five Slytherins already sorted, and by the time Charity Wood was sent tottering off into Hufflepuff and finished the whole business the number had grown to eight.

With the sorting ceremony wrapped up and the stool and still-complaining hat put aside, the headmaster rose to his feet and approached a little slender podium. He always moved with a certain grace and ease that would be uncommon in men half his age. He tapped a golden spoon against a golden goblet and produced the loud ringing ting of glass to get everyone's attention. "Good morning ladies and gentleman and welcome to Hogwarts."

"Shut up...up," Bertram cawed from up high in his perch.

The headmaster looked up at the sinful black bird then back down at the students before issuing a shrug and saying, "okay. Tuck in." With a little flourish of his hand the four house tables groaned under the strain of food and drink. There was something for everyone to enjoy, from huge trays of succulent lamb cutlets to delicate little nibbles of cheese on sticks, jugs of gravy sat beside jugs of custard, and cakes of all flavours battled it out with pots of pudding and plates of cookies to entice and tempt. It was all too much, the smell alone was enough to send paletes oozing with excitement.

"Phroaw, this is the stuff!" One of his new housemates declared with real admiration and hunger in his voice. His name was Bellamy Wattles and whilst he was the last boy sorted into Slytherin he was by no means the least. He was huge and stolid with a pudgy face that looked like a freckled fist and short rusty hair thinly spaced on his head. He snatched up his golden fork and speared an entire chicken before dragging it possessively over to his plate where he began to attack it like a starved man.

"Coo, calm down, Bellamy," Chester Harper said, "the grub's not going anywhere, mate." Wattles answer to this was to reach out and grab two bread rolls in one big fist as his other hand ladled roast potatoes onto his plate. Harry, who had suffered through five months of slop and muck at Bolton and Albright, was tempted to join in his gastric assault. The smells were alluring and the sight of so much succulence made his saliva glands drip. But he didn't. He liked to think that the abysmal care home hadn't completely broken him, and that deep down a little refinement instilled in him from his fine home in Oxford still remained. He therefore took a couple of lamb cutlets, some steamed vegetables, and mashed potatoes before cutting himself a slice of lemon cake.

"Pumpkin juice?" Chester said as he held out a large golden jug with an ornate handle. Chester was a boy who would be best described as dishevelled but more accurately described as scruffy. His hair was a greasy lank brown mess that slooshed past his eyes in clumps, he had a large angry red boil under his nose, and it appeared he didn't so much as get dressed in the morning as pre-emptively dress the night before and saving himself the bother. Harry wasn't sure if the fact he had knotted his tie like one might knot a rope was a design choice or just plain idleness, but there it was hanging down near his chest several inches too slack.

"Thank you," Harry said as he took the proffered jug and poured himself a goblet. A quick sip told him the concoction was rather nice, if a little savoury.

"At least the school hasn't completely gone to the dogs," Able Fallows, the dark skinned boy who had been so critical of Colin's family, said. "Quite a few names I recognised, besides our good selves of course. Babybarrows, Uttermare, Salthouse, Olivier, Lovegood, Weasley."

"Weasley's hardly a name to recognise," a girl down the far end of the table drawled. Her name was Felicity Thistlewaite Harry remembered. She had a square face, dyed blonde hair, and make up better suited to someone ten years her senior. "More like a name to avoid."

"Still better than Creevey and Glover," Able snorted. "We didn't do too bad, I suppose. Possibly a couple of mongrels to contend with, but no mudbloods. I don't know about her," he said pointing to Matsuko. The girl was Japanese with silky black hair in pigtails and dark black eyes cast into that distinctive oriental shape. "Does she even speak English?"

"Course I speak bloody English," the girl snapped in a thick as syrup Birmingham accent. "What did you expect me to speak?"

"Japanese or Chinese or something?" Able postulated. Until ten seconds ago he had been very assertive, but the girl's sharp manner had seen him duck back into the amble side of Muriel Kibblewhite, a girl of such grand dimensions that she and Bellamy Wattles could no doubt spend many a happy hour enjoying a see-saw.

"Oh really, I suppose you'll be wondering next if I'll be wearing a Kimono to class and packing a Samurai sword."

"What—no, of course not," Able said, "What's a Kimono?"

"Traditional Japanese robes," Harry said between mouthfuls of food. "Quite fetching."

"I can't believe the nerve of you," Matsuko said, ignoring Harry. "I mean no one pointed at you and asked if you speak English, did they? No one just assumed you'd be speaking...some...I don't know...the African language or something."

"There's a couple of thousand languages in Africa," Harry said idly. "Perhaps you mean Swahili or Bantu."

"All right, calm down," Able said, again choosing to ignore the words Harry spoke. Harry didn't mind, he was quite used to it. "Just wondering, that's all. But your family is a proper wizarding family, right? I've never heard the name before, you see."

"If you mean, am I pure-blooded, then yes," the girl said mildly mollified. "And you wouldn't hear of my family in Hogwarts because until Dumbledore became headmaster my family were undoubtedly considered too yellow and too slant-eyed for Dippet. That racist old coot," the girl said with a pulled face of disgust.

"And you?" Able asked of Harry. "You are one of the Potters, aren't you? Not a muggle offshoot or something equally foul."

"I'm one of the Potters," Harry said, guessing as to his meanings and making several assumptions as to the answer.

"Good," Able said. "I have to say it was a bit of a surprise seeing a Potter in Slytherin, even the headmaster couldn't believe it when you were sorted."

"I wouldn't get too chatty to him, Farrows," Draco drawled from further down the table. Farrows had to lean forward to see around the chunky form of Muriel Kibblewhite, and Draco had to do the same to be seen around the bulging form of one his apes. "I saw him in Diagon Alley. He was dressed in muggle rags and being led around by the headmaster like some mudblood on their first day. He didn't even know who my father was, that alone should tell you the level of breeding to expect from him. No, I'd slip that mongrel a wide berth if I was you."

Able turned his pale eyes back to look at Harry with distaste and distrust and his eyes trailed down as if looking for tell-tale signs of improper breeding, "I see," he said at length. Able did no more than turn away from Harry and begin to engage in a conversation with Felicity down the table. By all accounts their families knew one another, as their conversation featured topics such as Uncle Carville's gammy leg and some wedding they had attended last year.

Harry didn't know if he should lament the loss of a potential friend or be glad he'd dodged a decidedly bigoted bullet. Whichever way he took it, he couldn't help but feel that this was the start of things to come. He could foresee seven years of being very much an outsider in Slytherin and he would undoubtedly spend a lot of time excluded and no doubt belittled for it. It was nothing new for him of course. In Dragon School he had been the awkward, smart, poor adopted kid; in B&A he had been the awkward, smart, rich kid; and now he would be the awkward, smart, impure-blooded kid. At least he had experience in these matters.

Stupid bloody hat.

Stupid bloody Bertram.

When everyone was thoroughly engorged and happily fed to bursting (except Bellamy who was eagerly licking the grease off his fingers between bits of a forth chicken wing), the headmaster rose to his feet and approached the podium for a second time that evening. He clinked his golden goblet with the golden fork in a bid to gain everyone's attention, and when that didn't work he made a gesture with his hand and the food vanished.

"Oi!" Bellamy complained as his teeth came clashing together with surprising sharpness owing to the lack of fowl to intercept them. Hearing his voice rebound around the hall and realising who he had just oied in a loud challenging voice, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and ducked his head nervously.

"Ladies and Gentleman, now that we are all fed and watered I would like to take a moment to read out a few start of term announcements," the headmaster looked up at the rafters, "if I may?"

"You may...may," Bertram declared and then to everyone's surprise and horror he took flight. A few people dove for cover under the table and one Professor, a large woman with curly grey hair, squealed and fled to an antechamber with her arms flailing above her head. Bertram black form descended in huge looping circuits of the hall until he landed with grace and precision before on the headmaster's podium.

The old man held his hand up to ward off Professor McGonagall, who was already risen from her seat, her hands were twisted and ready to throttle, and she had murder in her eyes. "First and foremost, would you please give a kind and warm welcome Gilderoy Lockhart, who will be taking over the position as Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor."

"Yes!" Professor Lockhart rose to his feet like an over-inflated peacock. "A few words if I may. Firstly, thank you all and thank you Headmaster for giving these fine children the opportunity to be taught by an outstanding professional such as myself," Gilderoy turned his sunshine smile towards the students. "I just wanted to say that I, Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class; Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League; and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most-Charming-Smile Award, will do my utmost to ensure you all receive not just the very best teaching, but the very best training in the years to come. Because I, as an experienced and fearless fighter of the dark arts, have found that there is no substituting good training when you come face to face with the perils that are prevalent in our world. That and a quick of nip of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey to keep the chill at bay, ha-ha." No one else laughed, so he gave a long, languid bow that earned him a few girlish swoons. "Thank you once again, and please remember I'm just a man...who is incredibly brave and fearless."

"Dick," Bertram cawed helpfully before the The hall started to give an applauding welcome that was drawn out to uneasy lengths by a multitude of girlish squeals and happy little sighs. Harry, and every other male of the species in the hall had long stopped clapping, but the female contingent kept breathing life into the adulation. It was almost as if none of them wanted to be the first unfaithful fan to stop. Gilderoy Lockhart, not about to let high praise and attention pass him by unnoticed continued to bow and bow and bow and bow until the headmaster clinked his goblet again to restore some order. When this didn't work Bertram came to the rescue. He nudged his beak into the headmaster's extremely floppy right sleeve, and then after a cautionary glance stepped the rest of him inside where upon he disappeared. The hall fell into shocked silence, hands froze mid-clap, and jaws dived for the floor at this apparent daring; Gilderoy, seeing the attention was over, gingerly sat down in his seat once more.

The headmaster raised his arm and peered down his sleeve before shrugging, "Thank you Professor Lockhart," he continued as if nothing untoward had happened. "Now I would like to inform both new and old students that the forbidden forest is just that, forbidden. Anyone found trespassing within its dark borders will be severely punished." No one was listening to him, all eyes were focused on his pink pointy hat he wore on his head, it was twitching and wobbling. As they watched in avid fascination the brim lifted and Bertram's head peeked out. He looked around and upon seeing nothing of interest withdrew once more under the hat which gave another wobble and twitch.

"Bloody Bertram," Harry whispered under his breath as he felt his face growing red. Professor McGonagall was glowering at him again and her left eye was twitching.

"Now a couple of notes from our esteemed caretaker, Mr Filch. He would like it to be known that there is to be no magic cast in the halls, and I must heartily concur. Please keep your spell casting confined to classes and any extra-curricular clubs that include proper adult supervision," the headmaster went on with a twinkle and a smile. Everyone's attention was arrested by the arrival of Bertram's dark shadow as it emerged from the headmaster's floppy left sleeve. He waddled onto the podium top and had a marble sized yellow something crammed in his beak. He seemed awfully proud of this acquisition and twisted his head left and right so everyone could see it. "Mr Filch has kindly asked me to—" there was a series of loud cracking bangs as Bertram began to smash and hammer the yellow marble onto the podium's wooden surface. "Remind you all that—" more bangs and cracks interrupted the old man again. "Is something the matter with that lemon drop?" the headmaster addressed the raven politely, going so far as to bend his head to confer with him.

Bertram spat the thing out, "too big...big," he cawed, and started to bat the thing around the podium with his beak. The headmaster tapped the lemon drop with a gnarled finger and it split neatly into four parts as soundly as if it had been chiselled apart. He ran an aged hand down the bird's back as Bertram began to greedily scoff the segments.

"Mr Filch has kindly asked me to remind you all that there is a list of contraband items pinned to his door, and he and I both recommend you peruse it in your leisure time. And that, I believe, about wraps it up for this feast and these messages. All that is left is for everyone to head hay bound and get some much needed sleep. Fifth year prefects, if you would be so kind as to escort the first years to their dorms I would be much obliged, thank you all and have a very good night."

In a flash a grey and black tabby cat pounced from the side of the stage towards the podium. It came with such surprise and such speed that even the unflappable headmaster stepped back in alarm. The cat landed with a screeching cry of fury, its claws outstretched and its teeth bared, but Bertram was one beat of the wings ahead and was airborne with a caw of laughter. He glided across the hall and landed on Harry's shoulder leaving the cat sat on the podium hissing and twitching its tail from side to side in agitation.

"Is that your bird?" Able asked with his top lip curled.

"I'm beginning to think I'm more his human," Harry admitted as he stroked the soft black plumage. "Thanks for providing everyone with a great first impression, mate," he whispered to the bird. Bertram silently butted his head into Harry's cheek in contrition and held it there until Harry forgave him with a nuzzle.

"That animal made a mockery of the whole sorting ceremony," Draco drawled with contempt, "and I personally believe it should be shot."

"Try it," Harry said immediately. The hard-nosed training of Bolton and Albright bled through on instinct. If a guy in B&A said he was going to kick your teeth in and you didn't retort in such a manner, you'd definitely get your teeth kicked in and they'd keep getting kicked in. A simple boast or challenge would 9 time out of 10 defuse the situation and you would retain your teeth. It did here as well, Draco's pale face twisted in anger and he stormed away with the rest of the students towards the huge double doors.

"Hello everyone," a teenage girl with short blonde hair and round face said cheerfully and she gave them a little finger wave. "My name's Michelle Owen and I'm the fifth year prefect, and this is Jerrod Cartwright, he's a fifth year prefect too," she pointed towards exhibit B. Jarrod looked like he had just been the victim of a botched lobotomy and stood at her side trying not to confuse breathing and standing, or worse, trying to remember how to do both at once. "We're gonna show you to the Slytherin Common Room, so if you'll just follow us we'll be there in two whisks of a wisps wings."

They were ushered out of the great hall and Harry felt sorry for the Hufflepuff prefects who had to contend with the four boys from the boat. They had all been sorted into the house had hadn't stopped messing since. Upon passing through the doors of the great hall they rushed off in two directions, one boy chasing another and the other two wandering away to look at a painting they liked. The two prefects might as well try and herd cats. Harry saw Ginny looking at him from across the small crowd, and the instant she caught him looking she made a very deliberately point of turning away. She started to converse with Colin Creevey and some other boy with curly brown hair.

Whilst all the other houses in the school split off to the right, the Slytherins went left as if they were pariahs. Soon enough their little convoy was alone, lost amid a silent maze of hallways and staircases. Harry was looking at everything mostly out of amazement, but also so he could remember his way back to the hall. In time they arrived at a particularly grand hallway that was wide and high with marble floor and intricate carvings. Their feet echoed on the flagstone as they walked and silvery moonlight speared through lean tall windows, splashed against the big stone statues, and painted their shadows against the wall in deep dark black. Harry wondered if one of the many doors shooting off in all directions would lead to the Slytherin Common Room, but they didn't.

"To reach the proper dungeons for the Slytherin Common Room you'll need to take these stairs down," Michelle said and gestured to an arched doorway cut into the elegant wall. Beyond it lay a flight of stone steps that led down into a gulping darkness. "There's three more entrances to the dungeons, but they sometimes don't connect to the Common Room and sometimes they do but in different directions. So remember to use this one as it's the easiest."

Why does a school have dungeons? Harry wondered. Didn't corporal punishment cut it back in the day...did it still not cut it today? He would have asked that very question then and there but Michelle and Lobotomy Jarrod began to click their way down the steps. Sconces on the wall sparked into life casting the staircase in a flickering orange glow as they went and extinguished when they stepped out of the light again. The first years, seeing the potential danger of losing their guides in the darkness rushed to keep up.

The dull flight of stairs with its well worn and smooth stone steps was a far cry from the fine opulence up top and things didn't improve when they reached the bottom. "Second left, then straight on to the forth right, before taking the first left again," Michelle explained with a call over her shoulder at them. The directions guided them down a network dank little passageway that had been hewn from the earth and lined with dark grey stone. Something dripped in the darkness, and they passed arch topped doors and the odd grimy window that let them peer into the occasional classroom or store room. Where ever they moved sconces flared up to give them a guiding orange puddle of light, and wherever they left the sconces fizzled out to let the darkness encroach again. After trudging through the various turns laid out Michelle and Lobotomy Jarrod stopped and turned to face them.

"Here we are," she gestured to a blank section of wall framed with some decorative stone pillars that ran floor to ceiling about six feet apart. "Now, I should warn you, these pillars are not a good indication of where our common room is. There's like nineteen sets spread out across the dungeon and none of them work, I think they're like fake or something. Anyway, the real giveaway, and keep it under your pointy hats, is those words there," she pointed to the opposite wall. Where the flat dull stone met the flat dull ceiling someone had chiselled an inscription into the stone. "I can't tell you what it says as I don't speak French," Michelle admitted.

"It's Middle English," Harry informed her softly and without knowing he had spoken. "Depuren, Blod, Wyuere I recognise," he pointed out the words but shook his head at it. A few failed attempts at reading Chaucer over the years weren't enough to translate it, it seemed. "Can't fit it all together, though."

"Well, I only speak normal English, cutie," Michelle said with a little smile aimed at him. "Anywho, that's what you want to look for and not these pillars," she slapped one with a hand. "The common room password this term is Diamondback." As she said the last word the wall churned and retracted into itself to reveal a small passageway dimly lit with lanterns hid behind emerald green shades. "Come on in."

Harry and the others followed as they moved two abreast down the cramped passage and through a iron studded door that opened into what must be the Slytherin Common Room. The round room was large, luxurious furnished with green leather chairs, plush leather sofas, study tables, and a few bookcases. A massive portrait of a man in green robes hung above a colossal stone fireplace, and high above moonlight was turned green as it passed through the depths of the huge lake, and was oozed down into the room via a large glass dome ceiling. As they entered and looked around their older housemates looked back and seemed to size them up. None of them seemed to like what they found and none more than Draco who was sat in a big winged back chair with his thugs lounging on a sofa nearby. He was sneering at them, and more precisely he was sneering at Harry in particular.

"A'right Danny!" Lobotomy Jarrod finally found some life, and he quickly employed it to great effect by sauntering off to see his friend sat in the corner of the room. The pair exchanged a handshake and both settled down to catch up on a summer holiday's worth of chatter.

"Yeah, that's great. Thanks for the help, Jarrod!" Michelle harrumphed and stamped her foot petulantly. "Eugh, he's gonna be a nightmare. Right you guys, it's just us it seems." The girl made 'come on' motions with her hand and lead them to an archway tucked between two ornate silver and gold suits of armour at the back of the common room. Through it they found a spiral staircase that tumbled away even further into the bowels of the earth. Their guide wasted no time in clumping down the steps and as they descended each two turns of the spiral they were presented with a flat landing and a door embedded in the wall. Each door was labelled with an ornate silver plaque bearing the words Seventh Years, Sixth Year, Fifth year, and so on and so on. Their door was fittingly labelled First Years and it was located at the very bottom of the spiral, and on the terminating end wall was a picture of a big nosed man with a huge walrus like moustache and crop of golden hair reminiscent of a lion.

"Snoozy Simon of Salisbury," Michelle whispered with a point of her finger at the painting. "He's here to make sure you kids don't make too much noise. If you wake him up he'll report you to Professor Snape, our head of house, in the drop of a hat. He's ruthless for it too, and so will Professor Snape be if you wake him up. So don't do it, okay?" Everyone nodded, their heads barely visible in the dull green light that was coughing forth from the solitary lantern hanging high above them. Michelle pushed the door open and it squeaked in a very deliberate way, no doubt a security measure to keep them in their beds at night. "That's about as loud as you can be," she explained. "Any more than that and Ol' Man Snoozy will be off like a shot to snitch on you."

The door led into a small barren circular room that had a simple green carpet on the floor and a round chandelier made of iron hanging over head.

Excepting the door they had entered from there was ten doors set close together around the stone wall with nothing but empty book cases acting as dividers. "Your bedrooms are marked with your name, and the bathrooms are also marked as you might expect. Now you'll notice that we in Slytherin aren't divided into boys and girls like all the other houses. This is because you're Slytherins and therefore expected to conduct yourself in a manner befitting that status and be responsible enough to be accountable for your own actions...or so Professor Snape says. It's not really a problem for you guys, but when you're a bit older don't be afraid of asking for some advice or potions from the older students should you want to...get involved. We're all happy to help, mostly because none of us want a squawking baby around the place. Anyway, nothing wrong with a little free love, but don't charge for it, that's just plain nasty."

The assembled first years exchanged confused looks.

"So yeah, is everything okay?" she asked.

"Okay? You expect us to live like this? My dog has better accommodation," Able said loudly as he looked around at the barren interior. There was a wash of ssssh from all sides which in total was louder than the original exclamation. "I'm just saying it's a dump."

"Of course it is," Michelle said. "Professor Snape believes that the best way to motivate his house into good behaviour and success is to reward them should they earn it. You know, get a few house points, win at Quidditch, get good marks, and show initiative. Before long things start to look up, trust me. He's a good head of house is Professor Snape, very forward thinking."

"AR—" Harry clamped Bertram's beak shut with his pinched fingers before he could do something as unsavoury as get them all into trouble.

"Right, I think I'll leave you to get settled in. Classes start at eight tomorrow, but you'll want some breakfast beforehand and that's served at seven-thirty," Michelle explained as she teased open the squeaky door and stepped outside, "good night," she whispered with a little finger wave and shut the door with equal care.

Once alone the eight assembled Slytherins looked at each other before venturing off in all directions in search of their rooms. The light was so feeble that it was easier to trace the words on the silver plaques with your fingers. Harry found his after three failed attempts and pushing open the door was confronted with his room, which was a bit of a misnomer as there wasn't much room at all.

For furnishings he had a good sized bed draped in green and silk bedding, it was flanked by two miniscule bedside tables and at the foot was his trunk as promised, but besides that the only stitch of furniture was a tiny little work desk tucked into the corner. Take a long stride into the room and you'd skin your shins on the trunk, and if you wanted to get to the bedside tables you'd need to turn sideways and skim your way down between the bed and the wall.

"My brother said Slytherin could be an rotten place if you weren't cut out for it, but I honestly thought he was overreacting as normal. He considers cold tea an atrocity and orders Flannel to flog himself bloody if the horrid little thing let's his cup grow cold," Felicity whispered in the big round room beyond Harry's door. No doubt they'd seen their rooms and they weren't impressed. "My room doesn't even have a dressing table, how am I supposed to fix my hair without a dressing table?"

"I feel sorry for Bellamy," Able chortled, "I wouldn't be surprised if he got wedged tight in his room."

Chester Harper, the boy who seemed to ooze grease from every pore, became the oily voice of reason. "Look, this is all done to force us to be well behaved, good Slytherins, right? The better we are the better our situation gets, and I don't see no reason we should try and fly in the face of this. I heard those on the quidditch team get private bathrooms and have a room so big you can fly a broom around inside them."

"My brother said he was allowed to have an entire drinks cabinet in his room come sixth year," Felicity said. "He was Quidditch Team Captain and a prefect, mind you. He said Professor Snape would sometimes go down and enjoy a drink with the team after a particularly good match."

"I doubt it," Chester said. "My sister said Snape would turn a blind eye to a bottle at a party or something, but he wouldn't let you have an entire drinks cabinet."

"Maybe my brother was just better than your poxy sister," Felicity huffed.

"We shouldn't have to earn our stuff," Able snorted. "We're Slytherins, are we not? Well, most of us are."

"I don't think it will be that difficult to get ourselves out of this slum," Felicity said, "my brother said Professor Snape is a push over and favours his snakes something rotten. I bet all this is mainly for show. Come tomorrow night and we'll have proper lights, proper furniture, and room to swing a cat. Just wait it out."

"Potter and Banks," Able said with a grunt. "If anyone is going to ruin our lives here it will be them mongrels. I don't know about Mansuko or whatever her name is."

"Don't forget that vile bird of Potters," Chester threw in helpfully. "That bird will deliberately get us in trouble, just for the fun of it."

Harry sadly decanted Bertram off his shoulder onto the bedstead and stroked his head. It was a vicious circle, he thought as the conversation devolve into a hateful, spiteful soup. The accents had changed, but the attitudes, and the comportment hadn't. These children, despite their airs and graces, were no different to those in Bolton and Albright. They might use wands instead of the knives, words and wit instead of fists and kicks but in the end it would all boil down to rabid bullying. "This is all your fault, you know. If you hadn't irritated the hat so much I could have been in Hufflepuff or something, but no, not you. Had to show off, had to make a scene." Bertram's answer was to butt his head into Harry's hand and try to look adorable.

"I can't believe Banks would even dare show her face in this school let alone this house," Felicity said with disgust and distaste inching into every syllable.

"I really didn't want or need to be back in a place like this, this loveless, cold, detached, empty place," Harry bemoaned quietly to Bertram who held his tongue and continued to lap up the fuss and attention Harry was doting on him.

"Got to give Potter his dues," Chester Harper said, "coming into this house after all that happened. I don't know when the last Potter was sorted into Slytherin, if any."

"According to Malfoy he was in Diagon Alley looking like a muggle tramp," Able said. "He's probably not smart enough to know what's good for him. But I know one thing, I'll make sure he knows his place, and I'll make damn sure he doesn't do anything to compromise the reputation of this house."

Harry had hidden himself away in Bolton and Albright and there was enough distractions in that place to let him slip between the cracks and go for the most part unmolested, but he knew that wouldn't be an option here. There was such a small number of people and many of them had seemed to single him out. Worse still he needed to use the bathroom and that meant he'd have to present himself, and there was no way he was going to get by unnoticed.

Harry pulled open his door as non-confrontational as he could and stepped out into the dimly little round room. Able, Felicity, Chester, and Bellamy were clustered in the middle of the room like a very shady and underfunded council. Their hushed conversation, so easily heard through the door, shushed immediately and all eyes followed him as he meekly traversed the room to the pair of doors marked Gentleman and Ladies. He pushed the door for the gents open and stepped inside and was once again straining to see in the feeble green candlelight. It was a long room with four large bathtubs partitioned apart from each other, four cubical lavatories and four small sinks. Everything that could be tastefully painted Slytherin green had been, and anything that needed to be silver was. Harry quickly made use of the facilities and looked in the mirror.

"Well played hat," he muttered to his reflection in due recognition of a well done stitch up. The hat had known exactly how to get Harry back for his part in the mutiny of his song and he had done it brilliantly. He cupped his hands under the icy cold water and splashed his face to invigorate himself. The next handful was splashed over his shaved head to cool himself down. He stared into the sink as the water rained down into it. He would have probably liked Hufflepuff, except the four boys who had been sorted there; he would have learned to like Luna and the Ravenclaws in time too he was sure; and the less said about the monster lurking in Gryffindor the better, but even that house would have been better than this one. When he emerged from the bathroom the little council had disbanded and he returned to his bedroom and shut the door.

Harry turned his attention to his trunk. He unbuckled the straps and clicked open the lock before unhinging the top and taking out his sleepwear, which was now (thanks to Bolton and Albright) a pair of boxers and a vest. He put them aside on his bed and dug through the box for some improving literature to occupy his mind and take his attention away from the situation at hand. His hand pulled out a Gladding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart, and one look at his grinning face on the front made him feel queasy, so he stuffed it back inside. The next book was the burgundy diary, the soft cover flopped around his grip and the word DIARY embossed on the front in gold caught in the candlelight. Harry turned it over and saw the stamp for Winstanley's Bookstore & Stationers, Vauxhall Road, London pressed into the back.

"A new school, a new house, and a new hobby—journaling," Harry said. "I mean, keeping a journal is okay, isn't it. I could publish it when I finish Hogwarts, couldn't I, Bertie...Bertie?" Harry asked. Turning his attention to the bedstead he found Bertram was sleeping peacefully. "Yeah, it's okay. Keeping a diary is girly, but a journal is a perfectly acceptable hobby for a boy."

He got dressed for bed and climbed between the warm, soft, wonderful smelling covers and sighed in contentment. It had been so long since he'd slept in something that was clean, something free of infestations, something that didn't itch or crawl. His eyes closed shut to savour the moment and he found himself struggling to open them again. He could just sleep away the whole school year and forget about this god forsaken house quite joyfully. But he couldn't. He wrenched his eyes open, sat up in bed, jammed two fluffy soft pillows behind his back, and pulled the top off one of the ballpoint pens he had secreted into school. Opening the diary on his lap he saw the first page where the words This Diary Belongs To: were printed and under it was a long dotted line which someone had carefully written T. M. Riddle. Harry decided to let T. M. Riddle keep his diary and turned to a fresh page. It was faintly lined and the paper smelt fusty and old, but it didn't matter. He thought for a moment before writing.

_It is September the first, and I am currently settled in bed and about to 'enjoy' my first night at Hogwarts. It has been quite an eventful day and it has ended in unmitigated disaster._

Harry wrote all this in his neat cursive hand before taking his hand away and sitting back to inspect the sentence and read it through. It seemed like a very nice and captivating way to start what could be a world famous diary one day. Then it all vanished, the ink seemed to get sucked into the page as if it was being siphoned off through a million little invisible pores.

"Oh you are joking!" Harry sighed in frustration. How could he be so stupid? Of course it would be some stupid prank diary, why else would such a thing exist in a book shop anyway. He'd looked forward to embarking on a little whimsical frivolity, as well. He turned the page to see if the ink had bled through to the next page, but it hadn't, it was clean. Harry turned the leaf back over and startled at the sight of new handwriting where his had once been. This handwriting was not his own either, the tail of the letters were huge and sweeping and the slant was much more acute.

_**I'm sorry to hear that a day which should be so special to a young person has ended in such a terrible way. May I ask what went wrong?**_

Harry read it once, twice, then thrice. That was definitely not what he had written. He wondered if it was some sort of automated magical spell that replied to whatever was written. Maybe it was like those computer programs everyone was trying to create, ones that could write novels or pretend to be a human in a chat room. If it was the case the book was awfully good. Harry wrote underneath the sentence:

_Hello?_

The ink, all of it, bled away and the page remained empty for a moment and then, almost as if the ink was bubbling back to the surface again, it wrote:

_**Sorry, how terribly rude of me not to introduce myself. Hello, my name's Tom. What's yours?**_


	11. A New You

**Disclaimer: Insert generic disclaimer here**

**Chapter 10 – A New You  
**

Harry awoke with his chin resting on his chest, his glasses askew, and his back as arched and tightly strung as any bow. The two pillows that had been serving as a back rest had slipped away and the mere act of straightening up made things in his spine and neck twinge and twang worryingly. He straightened the glasses on his nose and looked around the tiny bedroom, which didn't take long. It was dull and morose with long deep shadows running away into the gloom. The fat white candles that had once filled the room with yellow light from their lofty perches had burnt to nothing and dribbled themselves into a heaps of gloop. Only a single stalwart candle above the door remained lit but guttering, and it alone was keeping the pitch darkness at bay.

Harry reach back with both hands and grasping the knots in his neck worked them loose. He still felt tired and he still felt worn, the day before had been long and arduous and the extended night exhausting. With the knots untied and his muscles more cooperative his hands sought Tom's diary, which lay open on the bed. He saw that the trailing end of their conversation from the night before still inked upon the yellowing page and a smile crept onto his face.

_I'm so tired right now, you cannot believe. I can hardly keep my eyes open, and I don't even know what time it is._

_**Draw a good sized circle in the air (going clockwise) before you with your wand and say Tempus. You'll soon find out.**_

_That's pretty neat, and it's 2:39 in the morning if you're wondering. I have to be up and ready for class in five hours._

_**Perhaps you should get some sleep, then. I must say you are a fascinating person to talk to, Harry, but I'd hate to deprive you of your rest. Besides, I'm not going anywhere and I am always here should you need to talk to me or to learn anything new.**_

_**Harry?**_

_**Harry?**_

That was when he must succumb to sleep, Harry thought. He and Tom had spent what must have been five hours just riling the night away in conversation. Tom had told Harry how sixty-some years ago he and a few friends had been playing a rather foolish game of Magical Dares and he had accidentally managed to sever some of his consciousness and trap it in his diary. Tom wouldn't explain how it happened in detail in case Harry fell victim to the process as well, but he did say he wouldn't recommend it. Harry told Tom how Bertram's mischievous nature and love of an attentive audience had got him stuck in Slytherin House, and Harry wouldn't recommend that.

Tom had been rather upset by this revelation, and he spent a good while explaining how he had been a proud Slytherin at Hogwarts. He had put forward some very good and sound points in favour of his argument too, and wheeled off a list of famous wizards including Merlin who were all Slytherins to boot. When Harry informed him of the Snakes current reputation around both the school and the world at large he had scoffed and allayed Harry's fears with a simple paragraph.

_**If Slytherin House was so evil and corrupt, then why is it still in existence? Wouldn't they have shut it down centuries ago and saved the world all the evils it harbours? Would it not be a failed footnote scribbled in the corner of some history book? Would it not have been ground to dust and long forgotten? No, because cool heads always prevail, and the wise and astute see further than the ignorant and short sighted. You see, Harry, the people who grace the great house of Slytherin normally aspire to better and higher things, and they often go on to be great and powerful people. This endeavour for prominence and this drive for brilliance often fosters jealousy, fear, and hatred in lesser people; and those lesser people will always try to vilify those that they hate and fear. It's a vicious circle I'm afraid.  
**_

Big Ben didn't resonate across London so heartily as that statement resonated inside Harry. Thanks to his time in Bolton and Albright he knew all about vindictive, small-minded people, and he knew how their jealousy and ignorance could breed hate and fear. There were people in Bolton and Albright who beheld the simple act of reading as some mystical gift that was wielded against them like a sword, and they often looked on the learned practitioners of this arcane art with suspicion and distrust. It was probably why they considered the police the enemy, teachers the enemy, the government the enemy, and anyone who wore a shirt and tie as the enemy.

Tom was certainly very smart, Harry had realised that after only a few exchanges, and the best thing was he didn't talk down to Harry or brush his questions aside like adults and teens often did. He answered Harry's questions, and he listened to Harry's concerns. When Harry had expressed his fears of being behind his magically raised classmates and struggling to keep pace, Tom had begun to give him some helpful pointers. He'd drawn pictures on how to hold a wand and explained how to interpret words like shake, wiggle, swish, flick, and swipe into very definite motions. He'd even imparted a few of his favourite first year spells for Harry to try in his bedroom. It had been great fun and Harry was doing something he always loved to do, learn.

Harry patted about the bed sheets and searched around and about for the mislaid tools of his earlier endeavours. He found his wand had rolled under his thigh during the night and drawing it out he polished the dust off the skull and held it as Tom prescribed. He drew a circle the size of a dinner plate in the air before him as he said Tempus and watched as the wand's black tip left a little trail of red and blue sparkles lingering in the air. The instant the circle was complete the thousand of sparks all pulsed like a thousand miniscule supernovas and in the wake of their shockwaves the numbers of a clock and two hands were left as a golden glow in the air. The short hand was at the six and the big minute hand was just passed the quarter too mark. He groaned, he hadn't had nearly as much sleep as he wanted, but took some joy that he still had time before breakfast. He searched a little more around and about his person for his ballpoint pen and found it lodged in a crevice between his duvet and pillow. He gave another mighty yawn before he wrote under Tom's questioning calls of his name.

_Sorry about that Tom, I must have just fallen asleep. Didn't mean to ignore you or crash out of our conversation like that._

_**No problem. I'm just glad you managed to get some sleep and prepare yourself for your first day. You are ready for your first day, I trust?**_

_I am now I've spoken to you. Thank you for the help and kind words, they meant a lot. I feel bad for dashing off so quickly after I fell asleep on you, but I really must. It's nearly 7 o'clock and I need to have a bath and get to breakfast._

_**Think nothing of it, Harry. Enjoy your first day and make sure you tell me all about it when it's over. Remember, you can tell me anything, pour your heart out. I don't mind.**_

_I will do. Bye._

Harry spent a great deal of time figuring out how the taps, styled like silver snakes, on the bathtub worked. There was six of the things in all one for hot water, one for cold, four for smelly gunk of all colours. After getting a nice mixture and settling into the hot frothy water he enjoyed a luxuriant soak and felt some of the lingering weariness from that long, long day before seep from his pores. Getting dressed afterwards he found his once black school tie was now striped green and silver and his robes bore a Slytherin snake patch on the breast. There was no hiding the fact he was in Slytherin now, he practically wore it on his heart. Seeing how he was the only one awake he decided to remedy the situation by waking up Bertram. The raven was less than pleased by this and passively protested Harry's attempts to interact with him. In the end Harry had the petulant bird gripping his forearm in his talons and passively swinging upside down under it like a sulking bat in a cave.

"Go and get something to eat," Harry said once they arrived in the opulent hallway on the surface. He shook the bird off and watched as Bertram spread his wings and glided down the corridor and out of the nearest open window. Harry yawned as he watched him go, and began to retrace his steps towards the Great Hall where he had enjoyed the feast last night. Upon arrival he found a selection of eager seniors already up and busily studying from books and scribbling on parchments that they'd cunningly arranged between the breakfast foods and cutlery. No doubt they had important exams this year and were endeavouring not to fail them, he thought.

Moving down the table and you found they were barren of life, as the junior years, free of such commitments, remained abed and sleeping. The only exception of course was one H. J. Granger who was sat amid her own sea of reading material and hastily scratching away at a sheet of parchment with a quill. Harry glowered angrily, not so much at her but at Bertram. The pesky buzzard was perched on her shoulder mooching bits of sausage and bacon rind off the girl who seemed all too willing to provide for him. Sensing his glower power said girl turned to look at him and her own face twisted into a sneer with equal fervour. Harry, still too tired and worn to care, employed some good old fashion Bolton and Albright diplomacy to the situation and stuck his middle finger up at her before slinking off to the Slytherin table. She must have been quite offended because he heard her harrumph of disgust from across the hall.

The hall filled remarkably quick as students didn't so much as trickle in, as flood. The older students walked like zombies and mindlessly plonked themselves down with tired grunts aimed at one another and forkfuls of food aimed at their mouths. The younger students weren't much better, they substituted lethargy with boundless enthusiasm, and they spoke in squeaky nervous whispers and laughed guiltily at whatever tickled their fancy. He noticed that the conversations on Slytherin table seemed to be passing him by, everyone talking across or around him and very definitely not at him. In fact the only thing aimed at him was a few snarls and the occasional grumbled comment that he was meant to overhear. According to Draco and one of this chums, Potters had as much right in Slytherin as a strawberry in a stew, and a girl with a pug face and bob hair who was sat demurely at Draco's elbow thought him one small step from a mudblood, but she wasn't sure if it was a step up or a step down.

His brooding misery, and the muttered comments, were cut short by the arrival of a man. His black clad form came swooping down the length of Slytherin table like vengeance given form. He had long curtains of greasy black hair framing his pallid face and wore long billowing robes of midnight black that trailed behind him as he glided forward. Reaching the far end of the table where Harry sat amid a smattering of first years he spun about on his heel and faced them. His dull coal black eyes glanced from one face to another and didn't look so much as examine them.

"Good morning, my name is Professor Snape and I am your head of house," he managed to say through a clamped prison of crooked yellowing teeth. "I would have introduced myself yesterday evening after the sorting, but I fear my time was being wasted in a search for two idiotic Gryffindors, two repugnant boys who enjoy a life where rule and law apparently happens to other people. I will, therefore, make my introduction succinct and to the point due to our current public audience. I do not permit buffoonery in my house, I do not permit stupidity, I do not permit laziness, and most importantly of all I do not permit disrespect aimed at me or any of my colleagues. You will do your utmost to maintain the high standards that I and everyone else has come to expect of this house at all times, and if you do not you will expect the punishment to be severe. Do you all understand?"

"Yes sir," the first years squeaked in fear. Professor Snape didn't cut a particularly fearsome figure, he was slender and lean with a face better suited to a well buried corpse, but he looked like a man who could be a complete bastard if he wanted to be. He also appeared to be the type of man whose sole aim in life is to be a complete and utter bastard. He was type of man who upon being woken up drenched in sweat by evil nightmares would get out a pen and paper and make notes for further study and inspiration.

"Good," Professor Snape snapped out. He flipped out a wad of papers that had until then been tucked under his arm. "Your timetables," he declared. Walking back down the table he whipped the topmost form off and held it out to be taken, and the recipient said a muttered thank you for it. He reached Harry in short order and then stopped, frozen in his tracks. His black eyes zeroed in on Harry and held him as good as any cage, his hook nose gave a twitch as if it had sniffed something it didn't like, and a slit of yellow cut through lips as he rolled them back to sneer. Harry tugged on the proffered timetable but the man wouldn't relent his hold. "Mr Potter," he didn't so much as say the word as ooze it from his mouth like pus from bust abscess. "When Professor Flitwick informed me of your situation I must confess I thought him half mad and half joking. How wrong I was. My warnings from earlier go double for you, and I would also like to inform you that I took the precaution of filling out expulsion papers last night with your name on. There is no need to waste my valuable time doing them should the need arise in the near future, as it were. One false move on your part, Potter, and I will see them submitted with all due haste. And believe me, with my signature on them-your head of house-there will no trial, no appeal, no plea bargain, just your speedy expulsion from my presence. You will be gone, your wand will be snapped, and I will be overjoyed. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir," Harry said. What he'd done to earn the man's ire he didn't know, but he suspected Bertram was undoubtedly involved. The man relented his hold and Harry's tugging grip saw his hand whip back and smack him right on the nose.

With a little smile at this juvenile result and without another word the man dismissed Harry's existence by turning his hook nose up to look about the table at his audience. "I was informed there were eight new first years?"

Harry looked around him. There was Bellamy coaxed out of his bed by the smell of food, there was Matsuko and Tabitha down the end of the table, there was Felicity, and as Harry was doing the headcount Chester slumped into a chair and cradled his head. "There is," Harry said.

"Why am I now counting six, then?" the man asked, his coal black peepers searching Harry for answers as if it was his fault.

"Able's still asleep," Chester yawned as he took the timetable offered to him. "Dunno about Muriel, wasn't brave enough to knock on her door and find out."

"So you just left them in their beds to be late for their first class?" Professor Snape demanded of Chester before snapping his head around and giving Harry a dark look. "Potter, didn't you think to wake them up?"

"They didn't think to wake me up," Harry defended.

"Typical indolent behaviour I would expect from a Potter," he spat. "If they're late for their classes I'm going to hold you personally responsible for it."

"But—" Harry said, the man didn't wait to listen, he spun around and billowed away to resume his task of passing out the timetables. Harry fumed silently. It wasn't enough that the entire Slytherin House seemed to consider him something slightly less than a turd, but the chief of the house seemed to have the opinion that he had stepped him in. He perused his timetable and found his first lesson was double potions. That sounded quite fun, and he wondered who taught it.

"You really know how to make friends, don't you" Chester mocked. He still looked like a tramp who had put effort into his dishevelment. His greasy brown hair was stuck up on one side, his robe collar was tucked in, and the creases in his pillow had been embedded in his face. As Harry watched he dug a finger in his ear, jiggled it about, and then after a brief inspection of the contents wiped it off on the breast of his robes.

"It's a knack," Harry said distantly. His attention was suddenly grabbed by the fact it was raining owls, which was hardly normal. They dive bombed the dinner tables, crashed into the crockery, upset the jugs of pumpkin juice, and got into little fights over scraps of bacon rind. One particularly grubby beast flopped itself down before Chester and held a leg out containing a small crudely wrapped brown package.

"Coo, mum's sent my underpants. Would have started to get awkward if she hadn't," he informed any interested parties. He untied the package and went on to unfurl two pairs of greying Y-fronts with decidedly horrifying stains and a saggy gussets.

"You do have more than two pairs, do you not?" Harry asked as the boy inspected them keenly.

"Nah, two's fine," he assured Harry before he stuffed the underwear in his pocket. "One to wear, one to wash."

Draco received something he would no doubt refer to as 'a correspondence' and he looked awfully pleased about it. It arrived via a large eagle owl who managed to look as haughty and arrogant as its master by the mere act of sitting there. Without any care or consideration for the animal's wellbeing Draco yanked the missive attached to the leg and snapped the twine that kept it there. It was a plush ivory coloured envelope sealed with golden wax bearing an ornate M. He slit it open languidly with his butter knife, extracted a stiff card, and read it at some length. A smile reminiscent of an oil spill spread across his pallid face, he scrambled out of his chair all in a flutter, and rushed down the table to begin a hushed conversation with a square headed, jug eared thug in the highest year.

"RONALD BILIUS WEASLEY! HOW COULD YOU BE SO STUPID!" a shrill woman's voice shook all concerns about Draco out of Harry's brain and he and everyone else turned to the Gryffindor Table. "OF ALL THE IDIOTIC THINGS TO DO! FLYING A CAR TO SCHOOL IN BROAD DAYLIGHT...AND TO DRAG POOR NEVILLE ALONG WITH YOU! I HONESTLY CAN'T CREDIT IT! YOU KNOW YOUR FATHER HAS BEEN CALLED INTO SPECIAL ENQUIRY TO ANSWER QUESTIONS! HE COULD LOSE HIS JOB AND THAT WOULD RUIN OUR FAMILY!" A gangly red head with freckles was being thoroughly harangued by a red envelope that was gulping out puffs of smoke and vibrating dangerously on the table before him as it shouted. Everyone else around him had dived for cover and all he could do was cower behind his hands and quiver in fear. "IF I GET ONE MORE COMPLAINT ABOUT YOU, RONALD, I WILL HAVE YOU DRAGGED OUT OF HOGWARTS BY YOUR EARS!" The envelope finished. There was a tiny explosion of red light, a puff of smoke, and Ronald Bilious Weasley was being rained on by shredded red confetti.

Silence.

"Ha ha," Bertram, who had watched the thing from his seat on Hermione's shoulder, laughed. This of course gave everyone else the idea and soon the hall was ringing with chuckles and guffaws. Ronald Weasley's vivid red blush quickly drained to sickly pallor as he sulked down in his chair and tried his best to vanish under the table.

Harry was at least saved the embarrassment of having to act in loco parentis for Able and Muriel at least. Okay, so his basis on parenting was a little tainted, but he expected that the job of knocking on doors and chirping a cheerful wake up call was normally reserved for mothers and fathers, not peers. Both late-comers came trotting into the hall at commendable speed and both rushed over to salvage what scraps they could from Bellamy's ever-reaching, ever-grasping hands. Harry took their arrival as his cue to leave, there was something about Able that made his skin crawl.

Potions was held in the dungeons and their classroom was tucked away in one of the darker, danker, damper corners (which was saying something). Harry, with Professor Snape's warning still ringing in his ears, was the first to arrive. He tried the iron bound door with its ancient wrought iron fittings, but it was locked tight, so he rested his back against the wall and waited. In time dark shapes swept up the gloomy corridor towards him, and as they approached they turned into the distinctive forms of several Gryffindors. He saw Ginny and Colin, with a big bulky camera hung around his neck, leading the pack, and you couldn't miss the boy called Sidney Still looming behind them. His gangly long form towered over his housemates at a rather unsettling angle, it was as if he was walking along a camber. Harry tried to twist his head askew in a bid to straighten him up, but it didn't work, the boy continued to walk at a slant.

"Oh Merlin, we're with the snakes," One of the boys he couldn't name said as Harry's green and silver tie and snake badge became apparent.

"Tell me about it," Harry sighed in complete sympathy. He'd said the exact same thing more than once. The Gryffindors took up positions on the far wall in a manner similar to Harry's and their eyes never once left his, as if they expected him to strike out at them.

"Oi, Oi, Oi!" A cheerful voice echoed down the dungeons and everyone turned to see Chester walking towards them. He dragged his feet as he walked, one shoulder was hunched down under the weight of his schoolbag, and his head bobbed along from side to side on top of his neck. "Oh, it's you, Potter," he amended his welcome upon seeing Harry's face. "Bloody buggery, it's the...Gryffindorks!" He seemed rather pleased with the insult he had tacked onto the end, he'd wrapped it in a moment of silence so people could appreciate it and snorted a guffaw of laughter after the payload had landed.

"Shut your greasy face, Harper," one of the Gryffindors declared as Chester took up station beside Harry on the wall.

As more people arrived the walls became their battle lines of sorts and the narrow expanse of corridor between them a demilitarised zone. Snakes stared at the lions and the lion stared back. The only fighting to be had was verbal, with Able snapping off derisive remarks at some of the boys, mainly Colin; and Felicity doing her utmost to be a complete bitch to every member of her sex in earshot. Felicity wasn't discriminate in her animosity, and Matsuko and Tabitha were given the sharp side of her tongue as readily as Ginny and the Gryffindors. The only one she didn't bite at was Muriel, mainly because the girl could twist her head off like a bottle top.

The iron strapped door was thrown open with a calamitous boom as it crashed into the wall and Professor Snape strode out with his robes billowing behind him and his face sneering and serious before him. Harry gulped at the sight of him, potions had seemed like a lot of fun as well. From what he'd read it was almost a blend of chemistry and cookery, and he liked chemistry. It didn't seem so fun now. The professor rounded on his heel and snapped to attention as his black gaze trailed across the assembled armies. "IN!" the word cracked out of his mouth like a bullet from a rifle and before it had even finished reverberating down the passageway he had marched back inside his lair.

Harry, being closest to the door, was first into the classroom and he saw six long concrete tables sat in two rows facing the front, each table held four stations. On shelves around the walls were pickling jars full of...things, and some of them gurgled and other bubbled in their various brews. Before Harry could appreciate them or anything else further someone shoved him in the back and he was thrown forward. His hip cracked into the sharp corner of the nearest table and he staggered, barely managing to keep his footing.

"Potter!" Professor Snape barked. "Stop messing around or I'll have you removed!"

"I fell sir," Harry said as he turned to see if he could ascertain who had shoved him, but the crowd had dispersed and the person lost amid the sea. Harry limped to a seat on the end of the nearest bench and sat down on the high stool that was tucked under the strangely industrial tabletop. Tabitha Banks, the girl with the hair explosion, lowered herself into the seat next to him and gave him a little understanding smile.

Professor Snape flicked open a little book and began to crack out surnames like a machine gun, Babybarrows, Banks, Creevey, Farrows, Glover were shot across the room in short order and so on and so on they went until he spat Potter out with no small amount of disgust and carried on until he said Weasley in a tone that suggested he didn't like the taste of that name either. With the register read the man shot to his feet, his stool scraped across the floor and he began to pace. "Put your wands away, there is no need silly wand waving to be done here," he said. Harry was glad for that little factoid. No one at school had seen the Macabre Wand yet, and if he had it his way that is how things would remain until he was old and buried. "I do not teach an art form in this classroom, there is no interpretation to be found, no emotional outpouring, and no fickle nonsense like soul and expression. I teach the science of potion making here, it is exact and it is precise. In this room I will teach the methods and the understanding to make bottles of brilliance, vials of virility, pots of power; and all I ask in return is for you to respect and adhere to the work I set, and apply yourselves to the task at hand. Of course I have often found that year in and year out I ask far too much, and the most I can ask from you clot headed buffoons is not to blow yourselves up. I ask you, do not blow yourselves up, it causes me paperwork. POTTER!"

"Yes sir," Harry said polite and respectable as always. The man's onyx gaze caught him and held him prisoner.

"What do Cirsium, Sonchus, and Echinops all hold in common?" He said smoothly. "Answer!"

"They're all members of the Asteraceae family, sir," Harry answered smoothly. He'd picked that up from his Herbology companion book, not his potions book. "They're all thistles," he added for precision purposes.

"So it appears you took the time to read your Herbology textbook, that's a start I suppose," he said. "Perhaps you can impress me with your potion knowledge. Name me a potion that can be made with one of those thistles?"

"Stomach settling solution," Harry answered. It was on page 30-something of his textbook and the list of ingredients had been so easy to obtain from the local supermarket and any nearby garden Harry had been tempted to try brewing it in his library storeroom. He didn't though, he didn't know what boiled snail slime and cow's milk would smell like, and he didn't want to attract attention.

The man's dull black eyes blinked and he held Harry for a moment, "very good Mr Potter. Ten points to Slytherin for your excellent knowledge on both concocting and Herbology. Miss Weasley, let's see which of those revolting brothers you aspire after, shall we. Tell me, where does Deadmire Moss grow and when is the most lucrative time to harvest it?"

Ginny thought for a moment before offering up, "fairy mounds?" nervously and when the man sneered at her she added, "And under a full moon?"

"A full moon!" he spluttered as if the suggestion had hurt him. "It appears you're taking after those idiot twins and that lack brain Ronald, doesn't it. Didn't you even think about flicking through your textbook whilst lounging around in your hovel of a home?" he picked up his copy of the textbook of his desk as if to remind them what it should look like, and then he slammed it down on his desk with a great bang. The Slytherins at the back of the class chuckled and started muttering the word hovel as if it was novel. "Ten points from Gryffindor for being woefully unprepared for this lesson. Would anyone else like to add your own pathetic attempt at answering that question?"

Harry, not a boy who liked to volunteer answers, raised his hand a little. He really needed to be on the right foot with this man and if answering a few questions would help his cause, he would. The man waited a few moments, his head turning to look around the class before he pointed a finger at Harry. "Deadmire Moss grows under corpses found in Peat Bogs. The best time to harvest the moss is immediately after the body has been removed and the moss uncovered, preferably under a crescent moon."

"Another excellent answer, ten points to Slytherin," Professor Snape said after giving Harry another long dark stare. He turned around and thwacked his wand against the blackboard. Spindly white chalk writing spread out across the black surface to give the instructions for a boil cure, and the man took his seat at his desk. "Your assignment for the day is on the board. I don't expect to hear anyone talking and I expect everyone to be finished by the end of the lesson. Begin!"

Harry did begin his work, and so did everyone else. He found potion making to be the sort of thing he liked, there was no need for special talent or even superior intellect to get results, all it needed was the ability to follow instructions. To his right the timid form of Tabitha Banks had tied her hair back so the brown curly explosion looked like it was caught in the wind, and she worked away as silently as everyone else, no one, not even the pompous ass Able, was willing to step out of line with this monstrous professor.

Two hours later Harry's boil cure was a simmering sunburnt orange with a slightly oily texture, and when he waved some of the fumes towards him he found it smelt like aniseed and nutmeg. He checked the board once more to ensure he wasn't missing any steps and then checked his potion textbook to ensure the colour, texture, smell, and consistency were right. Deciding everything was as expected and very happy with the results, Harry ladled a sample into a little phial, labelled it, and put the stopper in before delivering it to professor's desk. Professor Snape, who was etching the work of some other poor students with copious amount of angry red ink, flourished in his writing and his quill 'accidently' sent Harry's vial skittering off the edge of the desk and shattering on the floor.

"Try and act with some care and consideration, Potter," Professor Snape snapped. He withdrew his wand and with a flick vanished the mess off the floor. "That's your work receiving a T for not pay attention!"

"I have enough left over for another sample in my—" Harry stopped as the man pointed his wand at Harry's cauldron and the orange potion inside sizzled away into the ether, "-Cauldron," he finished sadly.

"Get back to your seat before I give you detention," Professor Snape said with a flick of his quill in dismissal. Harry slunk back to his seat as several people sniggered and laughed at his misfortune. It wasn't just the Gryffindors either, his own house seemed to find the situation hilarious.

_I just don't know why he did it. _Harry wrote to Tom that night. He was back in his bed hiding under the covers and using the lit tip of his wand to illuminate the written conversation he was having with the diary. Tom took the writing away and a moment later replied in his swoopy slanted hand.

_**It's quite obvious when you think about it logically. Professor Snape is head of Slytherin House and appears to hold a rather mysterious grudge against you. Therefore he is very receptive to you gaining house points and benefitting his own standing, but undoubtedly dislikes you getting any personal reward that does not profit him in some way.**_

_Yeah, I already sort of understood that. What I don't get is why he would want to do it. Surely as a teacher he should encourage and nurture, not destroy and dishearten his students._

_**Harry, there are some people in life who are shallow and there are some people who are utter bastards. This Professor Snape seems like both. Do you want my advice?**_

_I'd welcome it._

_**Don't rise to the bait, and definitely don't try and antagonise him. **_

_Antagonise Professor Snape? Are you mad. Didn't you read the description I just gave? He looks like the type of man who would bite a vampire to get his blood back._

_**More reason to do your best to ignore his childish slights and immature manner. He has all the power in this situation and at the end of the day you will always come out the worse for butting heads. So when he ruins your work, say: Sorry sir, will try better in future; and when he belittles you, say: I'm sorry my efforts are not to your liking, sir. Trust me, give him no quarter to hold you hostage and always maintain the higher ground. He'll soon grow tired of it.**_

_You think?_

_**Yes. Maybe he doesn't like smart kids. Ever thought about that? Maybe he hates seeing young people whom he recognises as rising stars in the world. Maybe he dislikes teaching the people who will one day be looking down on him from high and powerful office. **_

_You think I could be destined for high and powerful office?_

_**Indeed. Through our brief chats I can tell you're a very smart and hard working individual who will undoubtedly go very far in the wizarding world. Is that what you want, to be at the top?**_

_I've always aimed to be the very best I can be. I think that's what annoys me about Professor Snape and his childish attitude. He is like a unnecessary roadblock in the way to my success._

_**How very Slytherin of you.**_

_Excuse me?_

_**The pursuit of power and prestige is a very Slytherin ideal. Surely you know that.**_

_I thought Slytherin espouses cunning and guile (or evil and bigotry) if you listen to anyone not in Slytherin._

_**No, the people of Slytherin use cunning and guile to obtain power. Strip away all the rhetoric and all the history, and focus on what matters and what drives the people of Slytherin, Harry, and you will find it to be the acquisition of power. Remember that power comes in many shapes and sizes. Some of your housemates will find it glittering in their family vaults, some will find it in their wand arms, some will find it in their minds, and some will find it on their backs. Slytherin caters for all the power hungry denizens of the magical world equally.**_

_Even the ones who find their power on their backs? _Harry wrote with a blush and felt rather crude and naughty for doing so.

_**Why do you think you're not separated from the fairer sex, dear boy? Consider this hypothetical example. The very beautiful and bouncy seventh year Slytherin Susan, who is positively radiant in the mirror but dull in the brains, looks across the common room and sees Slytherin Simon, a boy whose family has oodles and poodles of money with titles and lands to boot. Now Slytherin Susan is graduating in three months and she has a choice. Does she leave with nothing more than a lot of T Grades and a very beautiful face; or does she leave with a lot of T Grades, a very beautiful face, and Slytherin Simon's very expensive and very lucrative baby percolating in her womb?**_

_That's just...well, disgusting._

_**But very true. It swings both ways, mind. A dashing young chap with a penchant for lounging around is very likely to cosy up with some rich girl in a bid to living the life of excessive riley. Of course we could delve deeper into this depravity and discuss the old marriage contracts, but they've mostly fallen out of fashion, and we're deviating from the point. The point is: POWER! Slytherin House lets you get it and it does nothing to deny you the chance. All you have to do is seize the opportunity and make a run for it. And you, Harry, with that amazing brain of yours have it in your hands, all you need to do is grasp.**_

_True, but I'm quite content to just stand aside and let the days roll by. It's what I've always done and it always works out well in the end. Understand I'm not angry so much as disappointed by the way my first day turned out. I might have disillusioned myself with the idea of a new start to a new life and my head might have got a little woozy from the idea of making friends. _

_**You have me.**_

_Yeah, I suppose, but I was of course aiming to make more than one friend._

_**You don't make friends in Slytherin, you earn them. Trust me, sit at the top of Slytherin's power pyramid and you'll find friends. They'll clamour and claw at each other to be noticed by you, they will fawn at your feet for attention.**_

_They're not friends, they're sycophants. A friend shouldn't be someone who mooches around with you for profit or glory._

_**I think our definitions on that matter differ somewhat, no matter. But let me ask you something. You spoke of a new chance of a new life, but have you ever thought about a new you? Have you ever thought about a Harry who isn't a door mat? A Harry who growls back instead of whimpers? A Harry who isn't controlled but in control? A Harry who leads instead of led? You could do it you know, you're very capable. And who's to stop you? Who here is to say That's not the Harry Potter I know?**_

Harry stared at the page and the writing for a long moment. As usual Tom was exactly right, his wisdom and intelligence shining through as normal. He could of course do all that, but he shook his head and sighed. _I don't think I'm cut out for any of that, _he wrote.

_**With my help you are. Trust me Harry, you don't get many chances to forge yourself anew, and this, Harry, is a chance. You are tempted, I know you are, and so you should be. Just think about how great you could be with my help.  
**_


End file.
